cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/7654367
I personally think it could be a great alternative to cars and bikes for those who need to take a whole family somewhere or a decent amount of stuff.
Only modifications I would make would be ride-by-wire and an extra set of pedals (so you can have two people pedalling without the annoyance of normal tandem bikes having to pedal at the same rate), and a more powerful motor (only 250W is legal in France, where this was designed, whereas 500W is legal here in Canada)
Very frustrating! And we know that the path to change that is ~10 years. In the meantime, we will have to find a way to homologate them as registered vehicles, a process that’s not exactly designed for small projects like that but thankfully we have a governmental agency on our side to open some doors. Right now we are mostly using a loophole (and a bit of a gray area) of “self build vehicles” that can be insured but not bought or sold. That’s a reason why these are only sold in kit.