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PaperclipPerfector  5d ago (text post)   2481 thread views

Small-Scale Question Sunday for June 21, 2026

Do you have a dumb question that you're kind of embarrassed to ask in the main thread? Is there something you're just not sure about?

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Does anyone else feel like there's a capability gap between neighborhood electric vehicles (NEVs) and full blown, highway capable cars? Most states that allow NEVs have severe restrictions on where they can be driven, which frequently renders them unusable for daily use.

I long for something smaller, cheaper, and more efficient than a car that can still drive on a road with a 45mph speed limit. I can already hear some of you revving up your keyboards to tell me that motorcycles exist, but they fill a very different niche. I don't want to ride a two wheeled, open vehicle when it's 40 degrees outside and pissing rain. I want something with a roof that keeps me dry and a passenger seat.

What's keeping that market from being served? Is it a regulatory thing? Are the economics fucked? Am I just a nut job and nobody else wants something like that?

I struggle to understand who this would be for.

Most people sometimes have to go between cities/urban centers, which, most of the time, will involve going around 65 MPH. The only people that could even be interested in a vehicle limited to 45 MPH, are rich people who can afford to have an extra vehicle that cannot do all of their driving. Average and poor people are going to maximise the vehicle that can do all of the driving they need to do.

But the capability gap got kind of filled anyway, not by slower cars or faster golf carts, but by low autonomy subcompact EVs and "compliance EVs". Stuff like the older gen Fiat 500e, the Mitsubishi iMIEV. They didn't sell well, as they were too expensive for how useful (useless) they were to most people. But again, you have to be pretty well off to be able to not just get that one car that can do all your driving, even if it's a rusty 15 year old abused Civic.

Most families have two cars, and if this sort of a thing was an attractive option you would see more two car families economising on the second car.

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