RE: Lit Motors C-1
Discussion
I think it makes perfect sense and may be keen to look at one when they are out.
My other half wants to get a job in London, this will involve her driving 20 mins to the local train station, where the parking is £15 a day to then get the train into the big smoke.
We both car share at the moment so this would involve buying another car, fuelling it and paying £15 for parking a day.
If this could be parked in the normally free motorbike bays, no fuel or tax costs, keep her dry and safer than say a moped it would be a good tool for us.
So £15 a day parking plus say £6 fuel a day minus the £1 it would cost to charge at home , plus tax of say £100 a year = an annual saving of £4900 a year over a car.
And thats not including the insurance which I imagine will be cheaper
My other half wants to get a job in London, this will involve her driving 20 mins to the local train station, where the parking is £15 a day to then get the train into the big smoke.
We both car share at the moment so this would involve buying another car, fuelling it and paying £15 for parking a day.
If this could be parked in the normally free motorbike bays, no fuel or tax costs, keep her dry and safer than say a moped it would be a good tool for us.
So £15 a day parking plus say £6 fuel a day minus the £1 it would cost to charge at home , plus tax of say £100 a year = an annual saving of £4900 a year over a car.
And thats not including the insurance which I imagine will be cheaper
paranoid airbag said:
Methinks you'd need a very specific context for these to work - point at NCAP results all you want, people will likely never get over the idea that a crash is a fight you win or lose.
Commuting.See here at 15 seconds for a simulated impact and at 28 seconds for an attempt to cow tip it:
http://litmotors.com/wp-content/themes/starkers-lm...
sidekickdmr said:
Good point RE: the helmet though, that could be a deal breaker, could you imagine the helmet hair 
The law would have to change to exempt fully enclosed vehicles from requiring a helmet. But as I said earlier, the real deal breaker would be the need to have a full bike license. The law would either have to allow these to be driven on a car license, or it would have to be redesigned as a trike.
Trikes do exist that have two rear wheels close together which do not lean and the rest of the vehicle leans round them. Others have two wheels close to each other that both lean in parallel, like the sides of a parallelogram. So it is technically feasible.
Greg66 said:
Commuting.
See here at 15 seconds for a simulated impact and at 28 seconds for an attempt to cow tip it:
http://litmotors.com/wp-content/themes/starkers-lm...
Looks pretty stable to me, shame there are no cornering images. See here at 15 seconds for a simulated impact and at 28 seconds for an attempt to cow tip it:
http://litmotors.com/wp-content/themes/starkers-lm...
hms said:
I cannot understand all the fancy gyro gizmos to replace having a third wheel, which would be far cheaper.
h
It will be far, far more stable with the gyros than with a third wheel. Have a look at that video where they try to cow tip it. h
Also, trikes tend to have to have their two wheels offset quite wide for stability (and even then they're not especially stable) which means they lose a bike's ability to weave in and out of traffic. And, as James May pointed out in his 'Cars of the People' show, a road is infinitely long but finitely wide. Lose the width advantage and you lose your main advantage.
Edited by JonRB on Tuesday 2nd September 17:35
soad said:
forzaminardi said:
Stupid vehicle.
That's all.
This!That's all.
The big thing that I don't get about these (though I have to admit that I haven't researched it yet) is that although we can see that it's great at staying upright what actually happens when you attempt to weave your way down a twisty road? Imagine barrelling into a tight right hander and the damn thing doesn't want to lean. How is it going to know that you want to corner hard / lean over?
EDIT: OK, maybe the gyro slows down as the vehicle speeds up. But then it's going to have to spool up pretty quickly if you have to make an emergency stop. Having a reactively speeded gyro would lead to some odd effects during the cut and thrust of city driving, I'd have thought.
EDIT: OK, maybe the gyro slows down as the vehicle speeds up. But then it's going to have to spool up pretty quickly if you have to make an emergency stop. Having a reactively speeded gyro would lead to some odd effects during the cut and thrust of city driving, I'd have thought.
Edited by Richard A on Tuesday 2nd September 18:53
Richard A said:
The big thing that I don't get about these (though I have to admit that I haven't researched it yet) is that although we can see that it's great at staying upright what actually happens when you attempt to weave your way down a twisty road? Imagine barrelling into a tight right hander and the damn thing doesn't want to lean. How is it going to know that you want to corner hard / lean over?
It will maintain the right angle of lean to make the thing stable by altering the angle of the gyroscope within the chassis. It's easy enough to work out the natural lean angle from the combination of speed and steering angle. Richard A said:
The big thing that I don't get about these (though I have to admit that I haven't researched it yet) is that although we can see that it's great at staying upright what actually happens when you attempt to weave your way down a twisty road? Imagine barrelling into a tight right hander and the damn thing doesn't want to lean. How is it going to know that you want to corner hard / lean over?
I'm guessing that it will have speed and steering input going into an ECU that will identify that you're entering a bend. Also, I would imagine that at anything above walking speed the gyros will be throttled back as it will be generating its own gyroscopic forces just like a normal motorbike by then. It's a reasonable question to ask though. Not a whole new thing.
Been watching the progress of this for years. The guy that designed it is one tenacious genius who is prepared to learn from people like Sinclairs failures.
The guy is clever enough to design it in LA but dress it in a full body for climates like ours.
As for wearing a helmet, get one of those daft wee old fashioned things to wear. Soon Old Bill won't bother if you're not wearing one once they realise you're not going to get spat down the road when things go wrong.
And what a bonus, creeping through traffic (OK, it's still wider than a regular bike) and instead of wobbling through the gaps you just wait until one opens for you then glide through. And this thing does the ton. And again, from memory, it's damn quick up to 60.
As someone on here pointed out, there are people paying more than this for their annual commute into London. What's not to like?
Look a t
t and save £28K over 3 years.....Unlike some on here my ego's not big enough to turn that down.
Been watching the progress of this for years. The guy that designed it is one tenacious genius who is prepared to learn from people like Sinclairs failures.
The guy is clever enough to design it in LA but dress it in a full body for climates like ours.
As for wearing a helmet, get one of those daft wee old fashioned things to wear. Soon Old Bill won't bother if you're not wearing one once they realise you're not going to get spat down the road when things go wrong.
And what a bonus, creeping through traffic (OK, it's still wider than a regular bike) and instead of wobbling through the gaps you just wait until one opens for you then glide through. And this thing does the ton. And again, from memory, it's damn quick up to 60.
As someone on here pointed out, there are people paying more than this for their annual commute into London. What's not to like?
Look a t
t and save £28K over 3 years.....Unlike some on here my ego's not big enough to turn that down.Gassing Station | General Gassing | Top of Page | What's New | My Stuff