In the UK, you could probably register it as an invalid carriage.
Edit, Nope, it’s too heavy (it’s ~360kg, and the maximum is 254kg), it’s not limited to 8mph, and basically you’re only allowed to drive one if you’re disabled in some way.
In the UK this would have to either never leave private property, or be registered as a car.
Tricycles were all over the landscape in China in 2011, especially when I was on the bus out to Guilin. I took photo after photo, and no two were exactly alike.
This one is close to a composite of the type: lawn-mower sort of engine over the single wheel, which was also the steering one. Sometimes more enclosed, sometimes less. Some had four wheels.
On one, the front power wheel was almost completely separate from the part that carried amazing loads (though not as impressive visually as the guy on the bike with a towering pile of cardboard boxes that I hope were empty). They were almost always this shade of olive drab–the only exception I recall was blue. I loved these things and took as many photos as I could. I should have put more in my photoset–there only seem to be three there.
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In Europe, the Twizy is classified as a “heavy quadcycle”. I still want to import one with a speed governor as a NEV.
there will some problems in the months ahead relating to broken items or faulty parts…
but the following is probably an acceptable purchase if your prepared to go with wonky
battery technology
Looks kinda cool, but yeah if built cheap the whole thing would be suspect. Not just the battery.
I’m always a little dubious about using a ramplate on a lighter vehicle. Sure, you still get the damage bonus on collisions (and the reduction to damage to your vehicle), but I think it’s mostly offset by the overall reduction in damage for having less mass. Unless you’re hitting a much lighter vehicle (Div 5 small cycle?), you’re unlikely to hit the threshold for the confetti rules.
I haven’t played Car Wars in quite a while. I wonder if anyone has a working setup on Roll20?
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I have a friend who is trying to put together a game right now. He has the campaign written and is basically ready to go. He had a falling out with the first player group that meant he couldn’t continue it.
I’ll see if he wants to put it up on roll20 or world anvil
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I would suggest waiting for the results of the “long term review”. There’s a reason such things are a staple of car journalism.
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That would be great, thank you! I haven’t played in a long time and would love to get in a game again. I’m currently writing up a Pathfinder campaign and intend to use roll20 for the actual playing. I can see how it would work well for Car Wars, but I can also see it would take a little work to put together.
I was half willing to play myself, then I saw the PHB was over 100 pages of really dense text…
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I’m betting there is not really a shortage of space for modding the battery after all that’s it regarding ageing and therefore may give you ten years of leverage
I’m sure a savvy person would be able to upgrade some key components, visually the vehicle is distinctive so i can imagine someone getting it as an interesting project to take on but i doubt most would want to bother.
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Yeah, this. In cities there are the little taxis, motorcycles with extra rear wheels added to support tiny sheet-metal passenger enclosures. They all look pretty slapped-together and death-trap-y and there are some horrifying collision videos – the driver (generally unenclosed) abandoning ship in the face of an oncoming truck while the passengers remain trapped inside – but they can navigate through gridlocked traffic and never lack for customers. In rural areas it was more agricultural vehicles, hauling loads of produce or livestock, and a lot of them looked like repurposed horse-drawn carts, but with the horses replaced by that single wheel with attached engine like in your pic. My favorite was this big wooden wagon, stacked with hay, with a giant engine-wheel linked in front, looked to be from a big tractor, the driver sitting just a little back from it and way high up, steering with extended ape-hanger handle bars; in chrome. Dual exhaust pipes too, also in chrome. No Hells Angels logo – I looked.
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I don’t recall seeing them in any of the big cities. Maybe there’s a zoning ordinance. I was amazed at the traffic–so many amorphous lanes, but everybody seemed to get where they were going without collisions or even honking.
true…
it depends how clever you can be with your hands
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Heh, yeah, driving was fun, or rather, white-knuckling it in the passenger seat as my wife engaged in a series of games of chicken. The turn lane was a frequent battleground and she was a fearless combatant. Mostly things meshed in a miraculous way but I did from time to time see quite some honking and fender benders and drama. We were mostly in Beijing and it’s a pretty cranky city, money and power and too many people, like NYC, DC and LA smashed together and layered in smog. Never saw those tractor thingies there, just the motor-trike taxis. Did see mule-drawn carts though, that was weird, they’d come in in the morning from lord knows where to sell produce off the back. We lived just outside the fourth ring road, and at the intersection with our street was a sign saying “No mules allowed inside the fourth ring road” and then on the other side, in the forbidden zone, was like three or four little mule-meat sandwich joints. A strong moral lesson, and a damn good sandwich.
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I saw signs for donkey meat, but never tried it. We were only over there a couple of weeks each time, and always in a sort of bubble, though we went out on our own more on the more recent trip. The first time we went, I waited for a gap in traffic so I could step out into the street and take a picture that seemed to me to sum up their attitude toward traffic:
Three lanes of “left turn or straight,” side by side. There’s something fundamentally different about drivers there. Pretty sure this would lead to carnage in the US, and they’d have to take up the street and repaint it within a day.
All normal cars are effectively one-wheel drive. The effect of a differential is that the wheel with the least traction takes all the torque. Putting one of the driven wheels on ice is all it takes to paralyze any 2WD vehicle. This is why locking differentials in off road vehicles are a huge benefit. It’s also why modern traction control systems simply apply the brake on the wheel that is slipping. That pushes the torque to the other side of the differential. Putting the motor on one wheel is common in electric vehicles of all sizes. Most don’t bother with a transaxle.
The traction behavior of differentials is something few people outside of experienced off-roaders or drag racers seem to understand. A lot of self-professed car people don’t even get this one right.
