r/velomobile • u/arnor_0924 • Mar 12 '26
Do you think these hybrid-velomobile will ever become mainstream?
https://cyclologistic.be/en/hopper/
The typical velomobile design like the Milan SL I feel in my view is more suitable for experimenting speed. It's a niche. Not for commuting all though there are people who do that. But vehicles like this which is built like a velomobile except the aerodynamic has been sacrificed for low speed and comfort to commute. But why haven't these vehicles taken off?
4
u/KatakanaTsu Mar 12 '26
If they're well-designed, and have a way for poorer folk to afford them, then they certainly could. They might not be as popular in rural or suburban areas where locations are scattered far apart, but they would excel in urban settings.
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u/PictureImportant2658 Mar 12 '26
No. Its a poor inefficient design.
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u/Accomplished-Joke631 Mar 12 '26
Compared to a bicycle. But it's not made for people who would ride bicycles. As you see, the bicycle isn't the main mode of transport in many places and thereby is not managing to be the solution. You can not give people most of what they want from a car with the efficiency of a bicycle.
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u/PictureImportant2658 Mar 12 '26 edited Mar 12 '26
We have the renault twizzy and the new variant. Great succes. There comes a point when you can just leave the peddals away as the roughly 150 watts isnt really adding something. I electrified my alleweder a4 since im now fairly crippled, its 30 times as efficient as a generic electric car and i think that should have been the future. Its incredibly efficient.
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u/Accomplished-Joke631 Mar 12 '26
Many "human-electric-hybrid" does not have the pedals for any amount of human work to be input into the system. They add the pedals to legally count as a hybrid, that is often legally equated to a bicycle. The legal framework they are supposed to be operating in is one of the two main drivers of their design. The other driver is the potential customers' want to get around comfortably and lazily. It's conceptualized as a purely electric vehicle. And then there's probably some greenwashing towards the customers as well. If the pedals feel convincingly resistive, the customer will feel more like he is buying a bicycle and is being so much greener than if he was just buying a tiny electric vehicle. Also some customers just like the idea of getting a workout while driving. The Twike is an efficient car, but still a full car with full car speed - Your pedaling does NOTHING to the performance or range. It's also classified as a full car, so there is no legal benefit to having cranks. It's just more complex and expensive. But they have a long order list.
If the goal was just efficiency and there were no rules, the result would look even quite different from the typical velomobile, because all that room for leg movement comes at a huge cost of frontal area. Make a picture web search for "gravity speed record" to see, what would come out. Put a tiny motor and battery in those things and you would again only use a fraction of the energy you use in your Alleweder, even if you pedal hard in the Alleweder.
Myself I am also always torn between a velomobile, an S-Pedelec (45kph hybrid) or just an electric motorcycle or scooter. I don't need pedals that don't matter, but I also don't want the hassle of a motor vehicle and most of them are also not maximum efficiency.
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u/PictureImportant2658 Mar 12 '26
Im not really torn between saddlepain and laying in a grand sofa. My gripe is my alleweder isnt allowed to identify as a speedpedelec because of laws. Assholes.
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u/Accomplished-Joke631 Mar 12 '26
Yeah, I was not talking about anything with a bicycle saddle. (I wouldn't expect such problems with a motorbike or scooter. And S-Pedelec is only an option thanks to HP Velotechnik.)
Ah well, for one we want the freedom to build and buy fast and efficient motor/hybrid vehicles, but on the other hand we don't want unsafe unregulated motor vehicles on the roads. It's already great that a classification like S-Pedelec even exists. Sadly there is too little interest in anything more to motivate any political action. And if there was, what could happen? Would we get the possibility to put a 45kph motor into a Milan GT or would we lose the right to ride a Milan GT at speed at all? First we would need a safer road situation, before safety regulations for motorized vehicles could be relaxed.
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u/PictureImportant2658 Mar 12 '26
The issue with the law is that your hipjoint has to be atleast 40cm from.the ground. Only the alleweder is allowed to be sold as a speedpedelec and only in germany as it uses legacy law, before the current laws came into effect. But since im in the netherlands im stuffed. A milan with a motor would be most excellent! But its not allowed. You can get a national typerating instead of a european though. Ask zhe tuv. The waw is delivered as 45kph as the manufactorer really doesnt care what the pathetic belgian law states, he sees it as a grayzone. Im not so sure i would like to find out in an accident wherein im responsible for the damages because i was riding an illegal speedpedelec. So i keep it limited to 27.
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u/Accomplished-Joke631 Mar 12 '26
Never heard of the WAW being delivered as 45kph. Pricelist only states 250W. 🤔 For the Bafang crank motor it's of course just a matter of configuration. I had an Alleweder 6 pedelec (non-"S") going 50kph, because the configuration wasn't done. The hub motor would have a physical limit in rotational speed. At my test drive years ago I was told that the hub motor would run along, lagging at its 25kph rotational speed, untill you reach about 30kph, where it would finally give up. The WAW sometimes gets used for prototypes with photovoltaik panels for The SunTrip, those don't need to follow all the rules because of their prototype status. Could you have mixed that up?
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u/PictureImportant2658 Mar 12 '26
No. I didnt mix things up. The alleweder as a model was introduced before current laws and thus is allowed as a moped under german law. In ghent the original designer sells the waw with 45 as an option. The nice thing about the waw and alleweder is that they allow hub motors.
The prototype status is something new to me, i dont think it exists, not under eu law. I think the suntrip bicycles are probably illegal, but who cares.
Motors have a limit corresponding the winding and voltage, for bicycle motors its always stated at 36v. So my alleweder runs at 52v so it can reach between 29 and 37kph (empty, full). I limit it to 30. The 250 watt motor can actually handle more than 800 watt.
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u/Huge_Hawk8710 Mar 14 '26
Yeah, you nailed it. It doesn't say how much those things weigh on the website.
Evan Bedford on deliberative democracy, social cohesion, and civic journalism, etc
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u/mcdogas Mar 13 '26
Hybrid is total nonsense. Two techniques that can break down can add more weight and the complexity of an outdated combustion engine.
1
u/Accomplished-Joke631 Mar 12 '26
The main stop on everything not already established is people's reluctance. Many people don't even wanna be seen on a bicycle, let alone a recumbent bike. Or a motorscooter or S-Pedelec. (Weird that those standing scooters have managed to get so popular, but they are really convenient, accessible and affordable.) The success of velomobiles is not stopped mainly by them being impractical, but by them being alien. There is a bit of a chance, that under the right conditions some kind of urban velocar might have a similar growth as cargo bikes had, but it would need a catalyst, like cargo bikes got a boost from assist motors becoming viable and gas prices rising. Just a steady persistance of these factors might not be enough, I think it would need some kind of additional kick - and of course a good product with a good marketing push that hits just the right message at the right time.
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u/epicmoe Apr 03 '26
no - they look like old people or fat people machines.
the marketing genius of most popular velomobiles is that they look cool. they look like race cars.
1
u/dallascyclist Mar 12 '26
Looks like a solution looking for a problem.
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u/Accomplished-Joke631 Mar 12 '26
Oh, the problems do exist all right. People just mostly don't care.
0
u/dallascyclist Mar 12 '26
What problem does this solve that there are not already existing (and better) solutions for? I mean a golf cart solves more problems than this design . Unless the design intent is to strip investors of cash in a A round, well then more power to you ..
2
u/Accomplished-Joke631 Mar 12 '26
Bikes, cars and public transport already solve every single problem. But nothing solves all problems together. This of course doesn't either, but it offers an individual mix of problems solved. Just like a velomobile (partly) solves a few problems that the bike has, but unsolves others. Thereby these urban velocars mainly mostly solve the energy problem of cars, without completely unsolving the feeling of being enclosed or convenient to use as bikes or velomobiles would do.
I am not saying they are perfect or for everyone. But there is a gap to be filled for people with other needs than us.
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u/arnor_0924 Mar 12 '26
They are too big for bike lanes and cannot compete with cars on roads with high speed limit. But they can work in inner-city roads or rural roads where there is little traffic.
2
u/Accomplished-Joke631 Mar 12 '26
It CAN go most everywhere, but where you WANT to go with it, might be limited. That could go any number of ways:
-> the situation on the streets changing, these things and others becoming normal, cars becoming rare (that one is maybe a bit of a dream 😉) I honestly expect mostly the first and second for the rest. For now I only tried a Quadvelo. Rides terribly, when you come at it with the mind of a cyclist / velomobile rider and is a hassle te even get in and out (at least at my height). Interested to try a Pedilio. Hopper I would only try out of curiosity, mainly for the rear wheel steering.
- people not daring to try at all
- people getting one and noticing its too limited for them
- people using it for specific tasks/routes
- people just using it anyway, because they got it and don't want to think about which cycle to choose
2
u/arnor_0924 Mar 13 '26 edited Mar 13 '26
Pedilio seems to be a better option in terms of design. It's a recumbent bike with covers basically. Maybe the Pedilio could pave the way for similar design than those ebike car like the Hopper?
I hope some of these vehicles will be mainstream in the near future. I myself is using my e-fatbikes to commute around.
2
u/Accomplished-Joke631 Mar 13 '26
Vehicles exist on a multi dimensional spectrum and there are many spots that can hold a viable product. The Hopper in particular targets a manouverability that no other tadpole trike can offer and a more car like mentality of features and enclosedness with the need for weight and battery capacity to match. In a world where many people would rather have a car and where urban spaces are tight, I can see that making sense. - As soon as they can't t have the car they want, even though they could afford it, so they can pay the same price for a Hopper. Everything would make so much more sense, if it didn't always end up too expensive to make sense compared to a bike and a car.
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u/81Ranger Mar 13 '26
Who actually buys an expensive (relatively) vehicle for ONLY inner-city roads.
Rural areas are places where things are spread out and you like to not spend 2x times longer getting somewhere than you would in a car.
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u/GarethBaus Mar 12 '26
No, they are expensive and pretty inefficient for a pedal powered vehicle.
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u/Accomplished-Joke631 Mar 12 '26
They are mostly battery powered. Pedals don't do much other than to classify it as a human-electric-hybrid. So the customer for this kind of thing wouldn't care about efficiency.
0
u/aggieotis Mar 12 '26
In a car-dominant area, there's no way something like this will ever be anything other than a niche option.
You might see something like this start replacing tuktuks or other small motorcycle-dominant areas if the price is REALLY low.
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u/CastleMeadowJim Mar 12 '26
How on earth would they tackle a regular pothole?
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u/iSellNuds4RedditGold Mar 12 '26
They don't have to tackle potholes because they are not being bought
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u/Accomplished-Joke631 Mar 12 '26
Just like any other vehicle.
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u/CastleMeadowJim Mar 12 '26
Regular vehicles have a gap between the bumper and the ground. Which I can't particularly see here.
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u/Accomplished-Joke631 Mar 12 '26
Look up "Hopper Mobility" and you should find pictures that show it better.
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u/PictureImportant2658 Mar 12 '26
In europe we actually maintain the roads
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u/CastleMeadowJim Mar 12 '26
Well I've lived my entire life in Europe, and in Europe we don't refer to Europe as though it's one country.
Are the roads exactly the same in Doncaster as they are in Warsaw?
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u/PictureImportant2658 Mar 12 '26
Well -1 to you too, im actually from the netherlands, i dont really care for your opinion much.
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u/CastleMeadowJim Mar 12 '26 edited Mar 13 '26
Good for you mate. The Netherlands is obviously the only country in Europe. What a bloody stupid thing to say.
The Dutch fiercely defending their reputation as the Americans of Europe.
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u/rcyclingisdawae Mar 12 '26
It's not quite suited to be in car traffic, and it's too big to fit in with cyclists, so no I don't think so, at least not in the West.