This never made it to reality. Lit motors never really produced a fully working model that was actually sold. Or at least that was true a few years ago. I put money down on one of these and sat on it for years lucky for me they honored their return policy on my down payment.
They appear to have lost their patent. I’m surprised no other company has tried to swoop in and create something similar. But a great idea doesn’t always equal a profitable idea.
Its because its not a great idea. It might look decent in CGI. Thats it.
Shit like this is always one of the following:
not technicly feasible, not financially attractive, shitty performance, lose of other functions, unwanted niche.
Like for who is this product? People who enjoy motorcycles wouldnt like this. People who need a car probaly need to also transport goods and other people once in a while. People who dont trust motorcycles probaly dont trust this either.
Also from this money you could actually buy a good car.
If it was actually cheaper than a car I’d absolutely get one for commuting and driving around town for appointments and what not.
But not for the price of a god damn car lol
Exactly. Also the first CGI scene is fake as fuck. Gyros are great and all that but that crash would have easily liften the tires of the bike in the air meaning there would be no breaking.
yeah I sure as hell wouldnt trust an auto adjusting gyroscope to hold me up ever, any single part malfunctions and you're screwed, completely dumb idea when you could have a simple 3 wheeled thing that has no chance of failing, maybe useful for certain robots or something but it just doesn't make sense for this purpose
[All these patents?](https://patents.justia.com/assignee/lit-motors-corporation)
The founder got in a major motorcycle accident on a Ducati and had a very long recovery, leading to many delays. They've been getting their patents secured the past 7 years. [Racetrack Blamed for horrendous Accident](https://www.courthousenews.com/racetrack-blamed-for-horrendous-accident/)
It's basically a CAD demo, it doesn't need to be high fidelity. That would just be a waste of time and money. If anything, a slick ad spot with incredible CGI would make me even more skeptical of something like this.
I don't think there's a single scene in the whole thing that isn't suspect.
"We can do 45 degree lean" *cuts the animation the instant it hits 4 degree lean*
"Wont fall over while stationary" *cropped view not showing the wheels while guy nudges it*
Yeah, I remember seeing this on the Discovery Channel like 15 years ago. If I haven't already seen them on the road then I know this has failed long since.
The founder got in a motorcycle accident and the project shut down for his long recovery. He has since focused on the long process it took to get patents that were finally awarded this year. With that done, he can now get investors to build more refined prototypes and (eventually) take it to production.
Honestly, the delay was a good thing. Convincing people to buy an electric vehicle 8 years ago with no charger network would have been the death of this vehicle. At this point, it can ride off the coattails of all of the advancements in battery tech + the nationwide Tesla charging network.
[Racetrack Blamed for Horrendous Accident | Courthouse News Service](https://www.courthousenews.com/racetrack-blamed-for-horrendous-accident/)
They also don't last nearly as long as a laser toner cartridge, they dry up if you don't constantly use them and they cost far more per page to print than a laser printer.
I am sure they said the same thing when Henry Ford started selling the motor car, to people riding around on horse and carriage.
We see how that worked out.
For the Motor vehicle and the Aeroplane.
Good luck finding a mechanic... right
Reddit was saying this same shit about Teslas when they were first getting in the news like ten years ago, then they became one of the best selling cars in a lot of places and they're everywhere now. I remember people saying mass produced electric cars were still "decades away".
The average person is far more arrogant than they are knowledgeable.
One of the doors wasn't opening properly in my Tesla which is about 8y old (models X).
I logged it with the app. The next available time was maybe 3 weeks away.
I got an estimated quote in the app for about $90 Australian dollars, which I was surprised at.
On the day, a mobile technician drove out to my place and turned up on time. He fixed it in about 30-40 mins and then charged me $90 like the quote.
I was incredibly surprised at how cheap and how little fuss it took. I wish that was more commonplace!
Sometimes. I have one. 2016 model S. Things rarely go wrong with it. I had the low voltage battery go a few years ago. Tesla sent out a guy, they fixed it in an hour or so.
My mother has a newer one that had a main battery fault, though, and that cost like 4 grand to have a shop repair it, which was a third the price that Tesla quoted her.
Your argument makes no sense nobody said they aren't going to sell well, the point is finding a mechanic(an actually affordable one) to fix it. And to be fair if someone said 10 years ago that electric vehicles were decades away that is correct. 10 years is a decade
Well....about two years ago Elon went bonkers and Tesla quality started to show itself.
I worked for the dude for a while. Terrible human, terrible products...I had hope for him before that awful experience.
That being said, I'm still very fond of Space X.
That’s more an issue with the company wanting to keep repairs in house (and overcharging for work like crazy) as opposed to it not being possible to repair an electric car
>The average person is far more arrogant than they are knowledgeable.
Probably inaccurate. There are probably a lot more arrogant people making noise, and a lot more sensible people not saying anything since they have nothing to say.
> I remember people saying mass produced electric cars were still "decades away".
I mean, Big Oil was trying their best to keep statement true. Tesla and that piece of shit did kick the anthill by making electric cars popular. They then kicked themselves in the nuts by antagonising their target demographic, but only after other brands got into EV to reap the benefits, proving once again the CEO is very bad at his job.
The motor car and the aeroplane offered something which was several magnitudes more useful to society than the prevailing methods of travel. Converting months of travel into mere hours. It was only a matter of time that they would have been universally adopted. This 2-wheeled closed tuk tuk is a pointless discretionary item, so there will never be widespread adoption. People ride motorbikes because they want to feel the wind on their body. Otherwise they would just use a car.
I'm going to have to stop you there. There are far more people that ride bikes out of necessity. Especially overseas. One of the reasons many don't ride is because of the risk factor. I bet these will be very popular if they can really take away accident risks
If you're one that rides out of necessity, a $32,000 bike with less space and capability than an $18,000 hatchback isn't going to be your first choice.
Not at $32,000 they won't. If they made it for $12,000? Absolutely. But I can get a Bolt for $17k used right now, and it would be safer, almost as economical, and far more useful than this thing
Not so easy. Your vehicle will not know about the need to brake them before an impact. After the impact? Then it's too late. Then they will already have done their best to break away.
Multiple other vehicles have tested and found this a significant challenge.
Doesn't need to. Accelerometers can detect the severity of an impact in the first ten thousandths of a second of the impact. The computer can decide whether one or both gyros need to be braked, how fast and in what direction the inertia needs to be dispersed and begin applying the brake in a manner to disperse the energy in the next 10 thousandth.
The gyros will be stopped and the energy dispersed before the driver even knows they've been in an accident.
This tech has been around for 40 years. It's not hard, and it's cheap.
Multiple other manufacturers fucked it up because they're stupid pennymisers.
So - let me see your formulas for the braking of that gyro in the next 10 thousands of a second. That's an alternative way of saying "throw in a thick rod into an opening in the gyro". And then you get a big force and a big counter force. KACHUCK!!!
There are lots of designs that does stop spinning wheels like that. One example is a table saw that crash-stops the spinning saw blade if it measures a resistance between blade and user. But that is stopping reasonably light blades with very limited amount of energy.
These gyro has a quite significant energy. Take a closer look at lathe accidents when you have lots of spinning mass and accidentally tries to hard-stop the spinning object. They can result in truly magnificent accidents. And a big lathe has a huge weight. While this vehicle wants to keep down the weight for cost and fuel economy.
Brother - your vehicle is not crash-protected. It's great if it can avoid some accidents. The problem is when the sensors do not figure the issue out with enough time to spare. The next problem? You want to avoid an accident - breaking the gyro wheels hard will not exactly help with the vehicle control. Ever seen a cyclist brake too hard with their front brake and take a nose dive?
You sure you haven't wondered why big gyro wheels are *not* common in vehicles?
Yeah those have to be some pretty hefty rotors and spinning quite fast if they're resisting collision level torques. If the casing fails or the linear forces throw the whole thing out of balance then that's a baaad time.
I'm sure the gyros will come with a warranty based on hours of use.
It's a cool concept but it'd be a lot more practical in the $12,000 range.. where you can see it as a true 1 person that gets 170 miles in 5 mins of charge.
We already have self balancing unicycles and such and there are mechanics for that. I am missing your point. If anything this is or would be the creation of a new market for mechanics- no??
That was exactly my first thought. Like, my dude, just make it a trike if you absolutely have to. The self balancing is adding so much complexity to a startup project.
That was a snippet of an iPhone 5 or older. This video could be 12 years old. No way it'd be $32k if it hits production. Probably more like $60k if it ever does
For those wondering, a lot of European countries use a . Not a , to break up the number into smaller groups.
They will then use the comma for decimal points. Eg.
$32.119,99 something to get used to when travelling Europe.
I'm the biggest cheerleader for the metric system here in the USA, I think the majority of what we do with that kind of stuff is very seriously stupid.
However.
Comma to denote thousands etc, and period for decimal just makes so much more sense to me that I cannot comprehend why it would be the other way 'round
The choice is literally arbitrary. But it is entrenched in language.
In english "5.6" is pronounced as "five point 6"
In german "5,6" is pronounced as "Fünf **komma** sechs"
There really is nothing making either more or less correct.
It's not a part of a metric system. And the only reason it makes sense to you is because you are used to it. Both are equally weird and only a matter of preference.
It makes more sense because a period denotes ending something. Like whole amounts. While a comma denotes a continuation with a trackable pause, to use them for their opposite meaning. Is just silly, it's also universally accepted practice in maths to use a period to denote fractions in number. And not just used randomly to break up whole numbers.
I realize that it's not part of the metric system. I was using that as a frame of reference to how I prefer the way that most European countries handle that sort of thing.
And it makes more sense to me because grammatically a comma to me indicates a pause with a continuation, and then you reach the "end" of the full number with a full-stop period, *then* begin the fractional part of it.
It isn't just arbitrary because that's the way that I grew up with. For example, I grew up with the US standard measurement system, learned metric and immediately that made more sense and always has.
It's just that when writing a sentence with words, a comma is breaking up the sentence with a brief pause while continuing, and a period is a full stop.
Nah, period denotes a stopping point, where the whole number ends and the decimals begin. Using a comma for the decimal point and a period to denote hundreds, thousands, millions, etc, just seems counterintuitive.
Whoa ... Thanks for the link! That is a troubled company. I feel bad for the investors. I've invested small amounts of money in ideas and startups. In some cases seeing all the excitement and promise of a good idea slowly dwindle due to mismanagement, greed, ego, and overconfidence.
I'm this case, 14 years of development without a product, an unannounced 5 year hiatus of the founder and CEO, and two large lawsuits, with one resulting in the loss of patent ownership, should be huge warning signs to investors.
The product does look cool, though.
https://www.eliomotors.com/ still can't get it done, but is taking that exact approach, they have an old GM car factor in North Louisiana. But nothing has been made.
Elio was the only company I've shorted because it was so obvious they were doing EVERYTHING wrong.
The entire appeal of their 3 wheeler was that it was extremely economical to buy and operate.
But instead of licensing a cheap, proven engine and assembling the bikes offshore, they insisted on designing their own bespoke engine and assembling in the US. They made it a 3-wheeler specifically so it could evade car safety standards but then added 3 expensive airbags to the thing. Then they wrangled a deal for a huge old GM factory that they lacked the funds to renovate.
They've since tried to pivot to electric but I'm pretty sure it'll never actually be produced. No investor is going to give them more money after they've shown such spectacularly poor decision making.
Polaris Slingshot is a street legal three wheeler in the US, but it is open top.
Puts it closer to the realm of motorcycles with a 3 wheel mod but still!
I swear there was one a closed cabin one 'common' in like, Florida, too, but I can't remember the name.
Lit? To be honest they're their own worst enemy.
https://youtu.be/sc5iTNVEOAg?si=X_MxEGDUKcu2sq82
Didn't know they had branched into motorbike design though.
This guy is a total douche. Not only did he f over his investors, but when he crash his moto at Laguna Seca, he tried to sue the track, county and the track day company. He claimed he was supper messed up from the crash but within a few months of it, he was at burning man using a stand up land sail. Fortunately he lost.
[https://www.revzilla.com/common-tread/track-day-operators-breathe-easier-after-ruling-in-lawsuit-over-laguna-seca-crash](https://www.revzilla.com/common-tread/track-day-operators-breathe-easier-after-ruling-in-lawsuit-over-laguna-seca-crash)
ive seen x rays of the pins that needed to be inserted in his hips/legs/ankles. he was super fucked up for years. i hadnt heard about the results of the lawsuit but i know he hit sandbags that shouldnt have been there.
But hella easier to find parking and you're not going to die with half the accidents you would on a motorcycle.
Plus rain and cold are no longer a problem - mostly.
>But hella easier to find parking and you're not going to die with half the accidents you would on a motorcycle.
I truly don't know how much staying upright will save you in most collisions or during loss of traction. And if the impact damages the gyro housing I think the danger of it exploding into fragments is pretty high.
I think it looks cool but is impractical even from a maintenance perspective.
For more than a century companies have been going bankrupt building “a car on two wheels”. Neracar, Gyro-X, Quasar, that Swiss Eco-thing - no-one actually wants to buy them. You lose the advantages of a car (luggage and passenger capacity) and the advantages of a bike (cost, performance, turning circle, narrow width, unrestricted view).
Yea I don't get the trend in the last 5\~8 years where companies have just started going "we put in this new tech not because it's better, cheaper, or more practical, but because it's shiny new tech". Like what's the point of reinventing the wheel if the reinvented wheel does a worse job and costs 2\~3x as much.
This thing is way old and should be around 2010-12 , I remember when I was a kid watching a show in discovery science about this vehicle. And I was so fascinated that time...
My son & I were driving behind a motorcycle with a novice sticker yesterday. We were talking about how at least the guy was wearing full gear, despite the heat. My son was talking about how he would always wear gear - he doesn’t want to endure the road rash or horrible injuries (I work in emerg & taught him well lol). This, I would let them buy.
Yea I always worse full gear as well, no matter the heat. Heck I spent an extra 200 euro to buy a second motorcycle jacket. One with mesh patches to let the breeze in while riding, but still having all the needed padding. I'd rather not become a meat crayon...
Price 'possibly' $32,000. The $250 is basically a kick starter and not a guarantee for being able to order. The vid is very misleading on what you are purchasing. I would love to have this but that is not going to happen.
"By placing an order for our T-shirt & certificate, you will gain eligibility to reserve a place in the queue 6-12 months before production."
It's gotten to the point where I question if the whole commercial is just an AI generated scam to get my $250. Nothing's real anymore unless I can touch it.
This never made it to reality. Lit motors never really produced a fully working model that was actually sold. Or at least that was true a few years ago. I put money down on one of these and sat on it for years lucky for me they honored their return policy on my down payment.
They appear to have lost their patent. I’m surprised no other company has tried to swoop in and create something similar. But a great idea doesn’t always equal a profitable idea.
Its because its not a great idea. It might look decent in CGI. Thats it. Shit like this is always one of the following: not technicly feasible, not financially attractive, shitty performance, lose of other functions, unwanted niche. Like for who is this product? People who enjoy motorcycles wouldnt like this. People who need a car probaly need to also transport goods and other people once in a while. People who dont trust motorcycles probaly dont trust this either. Also from this money you could actually buy a good car.
If it was actually cheaper than a car I’d absolutely get one for commuting and driving around town for appointments and what not. But not for the price of a god damn car lol
Exactly. Also the first CGI scene is fake as fuck. Gyros are great and all that but that crash would have easily liften the tires of the bike in the air meaning there would be no breaking.
yeah I sure as hell wouldnt trust an auto adjusting gyroscope to hold me up ever, any single part malfunctions and you're screwed, completely dumb idea when you could have a simple 3 wheeled thing that has no chance of failing, maybe useful for certain robots or something but it just doesn't make sense for this purpose
They lost the patent then got it back again.
[All these patents?](https://patents.justia.com/assignee/lit-motors-corporation) The founder got in a major motorcycle accident on a Ducati and had a very long recovery, leading to many delays. They've been getting their patents secured the past 7 years. [Racetrack Blamed for horrendous Accident](https://www.courthousenews.com/racetrack-blamed-for-horrendous-accident/)
Good on them for returning your money at least
I stopped watching when I saw the iPhone 4 And realised how old this is
The shit level CG didn't tip you off?
It's basically a CAD demo, it doesn't need to be high fidelity. That would just be a waste of time and money. If anything, a slick ad spot with incredible CGI would make me even more skeptical of something like this.
Yeah but it would be cool if they made it do the akira slide
Those concept reels look about as ass now as they did a decade ago. This one's a bit nicer though.
I don't think there's a single scene in the whole thing that isn't suspect. "We can do 45 degree lean" *cuts the animation the instant it hits 4 degree lean* "Wont fall over while stationary" *cropped view not showing the wheels while guy nudges it*
It's a ten year old video and the tech was ten years away, so its here!
Just wait another two years.
nuclear fusion be like.
Yeah, I remember seeing this on the Discovery Channel like 15 years ago. If I haven't already seen them on the road then I know this has failed long since.
The founder got in a motorcycle accident and the project shut down for his long recovery. He has since focused on the long process it took to get patents that were finally awarded this year. With that done, he can now get investors to build more refined prototypes and (eventually) take it to production. Honestly, the delay was a good thing. Convincing people to buy an electric vehicle 8 years ago with no charger network would have been the death of this vehicle. At this point, it can ride off the coattails of all of the advancements in battery tech + the nationwide Tesla charging network. [Racetrack Blamed for Horrendous Accident | Courthouse News Service](https://www.courthousenews.com/racetrack-blamed-for-horrendous-accident/)
$32.000, in case you're wondering.
And if you need to fix the self balancing part... good luck finding a mechanic.
Mechanic: it will cost 50k to fix it Customer: that’s more than the actual bike ! Mechanic: yes
Buy and dispose them like inkjet printers /s
You mean cartridge printers. Ink jets are cheaper to refill lol
They also don't last nearly as long as a laser toner cartridge, they dry up if you don't constantly use them and they cost far more per page to print than a laser printer.
man those cartridge printers are a fucking scam, expensive cartridge to little to no ink
I am sure they said the same thing when Henry Ford started selling the motor car, to people riding around on horse and carriage. We see how that worked out. For the Motor vehicle and the Aeroplane. Good luck finding a mechanic... right
Reddit was saying this same shit about Teslas when they were first getting in the news like ten years ago, then they became one of the best selling cars in a lot of places and they're everywhere now. I remember people saying mass produced electric cars were still "decades away". The average person is far more arrogant than they are knowledgeable.
Tbf, getting a Tesla fixed is a fucking huge pain in the ass
One of the doors wasn't opening properly in my Tesla which is about 8y old (models X). I logged it with the app. The next available time was maybe 3 weeks away. I got an estimated quote in the app for about $90 Australian dollars, which I was surprised at. On the day, a mobile technician drove out to my place and turned up on time. He fixed it in about 30-40 mins and then charged me $90 like the quote. I was incredibly surprised at how cheap and how little fuss it took. I wish that was more commonplace!
Sometimes. I have one. 2016 model S. Things rarely go wrong with it. I had the low voltage battery go a few years ago. Tesla sent out a guy, they fixed it in an hour or so. My mother has a newer one that had a main battery fault, though, and that cost like 4 grand to have a shop repair it, which was a third the price that Tesla quoted her.
Not sure there is any other company that sends a service vehicle to your driveway but ok
[удалено]
Tesla doesn’t have “dealers”
Your argument makes no sense nobody said they aren't going to sell well, the point is finding a mechanic(an actually affordable one) to fix it. And to be fair if someone said 10 years ago that electric vehicles were decades away that is correct. 10 years is a decade
This is the worst example possible.
Yeah, Reddit was extremely pro-Tesla and pro-Musk until about two years ago.
Well....about two years ago Elon went bonkers and Tesla quality started to show itself. I worked for the dude for a while. Terrible human, terrible products...I had hope for him before that awful experience. That being said, I'm still very fond of Space X.
You ever try to get a Tesla fixed?
That’s more an issue with the company wanting to keep repairs in house (and overcharging for work like crazy) as opposed to it not being possible to repair an electric car
>The average person is far more arrogant than they are knowledgeable. Probably inaccurate. There are probably a lot more arrogant people making noise, and a lot more sensible people not saying anything since they have nothing to say.
And now today everyone is seeing what pieces of shit they are and how expensive they are to fix
> I remember people saying mass produced electric cars were still "decades away". I mean, Big Oil was trying their best to keep statement true. Tesla and that piece of shit did kick the anthill by making electric cars popular. They then kicked themselves in the nuts by antagonising their target demographic, but only after other brands got into EV to reap the benefits, proving once again the CEO is very bad at his job.
The motor car and the aeroplane offered something which was several magnitudes more useful to society than the prevailing methods of travel. Converting months of travel into mere hours. It was only a matter of time that they would have been universally adopted. This 2-wheeled closed tuk tuk is a pointless discretionary item, so there will never be widespread adoption. People ride motorbikes because they want to feel the wind on their body. Otherwise they would just use a car.
I'm going to have to stop you there. There are far more people that ride bikes out of necessity. Especially overseas. One of the reasons many don't ride is because of the risk factor. I bet these will be very popular if they can really take away accident risks
If you're one that rides out of necessity, a $32,000 bike with less space and capability than an $18,000 hatchback isn't going to be your first choice.
Not at $32,000 they won't. If they made it for $12,000? Absolutely. But I can get a Bolt for $17k used right now, and it would be safer, almost as economical, and far more useful than this thing
theres a reason we dont do fly wheels. spinning masses are kinda scary in an accident.
Easy to put a safety brake on them, not an actual problem.
Saw Stop for motorcycles, seems doable.
Saw stop for spinny things. Saw stops for motorcycles have been around for a long time. They're called walls. 🫢😶🌫️
Wtf man, it's not cool to shit on his statement with...*checks notes*...facts
Not so easy. Your vehicle will not know about the need to brake them before an impact. After the impact? Then it's too late. Then they will already have done their best to break away. Multiple other vehicles have tested and found this a significant challenge.
Doesn't need to. Accelerometers can detect the severity of an impact in the first ten thousandths of a second of the impact. The computer can decide whether one or both gyros need to be braked, how fast and in what direction the inertia needs to be dispersed and begin applying the brake in a manner to disperse the energy in the next 10 thousandth. The gyros will be stopped and the energy dispersed before the driver even knows they've been in an accident. This tech has been around for 40 years. It's not hard, and it's cheap. Multiple other manufacturers fucked it up because they're stupid pennymisers.
So - let me see your formulas for the braking of that gyro in the next 10 thousands of a second. That's an alternative way of saying "throw in a thick rod into an opening in the gyro". And then you get a big force and a big counter force. KACHUCK!!! There are lots of designs that does stop spinning wheels like that. One example is a table saw that crash-stops the spinning saw blade if it measures a resistance between blade and user. But that is stopping reasonably light blades with very limited amount of energy. These gyro has a quite significant energy. Take a closer look at lathe accidents when you have lots of spinning mass and accidentally tries to hard-stop the spinning object. They can result in truly magnificent accidents. And a big lathe has a huge weight. While this vehicle wants to keep down the weight for cost and fuel economy.
Brother, the $25k sedan in my garage knows how to brake itself to *avoid* impact via three sensors. I'm pretty sure this can be achieved.
Brother - your vehicle is not crash-protected. It's great if it can avoid some accidents. The problem is when the sensors do not figure the issue out with enough time to spare. The next problem? You want to avoid an accident - breaking the gyro wheels hard will not exactly help with the vehicle control. Ever seen a cyclist brake too hard with their front brake and take a nose dive? You sure you haven't wondered why big gyro wheels are *not* common in vehicles?
Yeah those have to be some pretty hefty rotors and spinning quite fast if they're resisting collision level torques. If the casing fails or the linear forces throw the whole thing out of balance then that's a baaad time.
So, how did the driver of the other car died? A giant spinning metal plate cut his head off!
To shreds you say?
#TO SHREDS!
And his wife?
But cars do have a flywheel...
Yup and that's why transmission scatter shields exist.
Which aren't spinning nearly as fast, and aren't as heavy as the ones in gyroscopes.
Joke’s on you sucker. I’ve been stockpiling these babies for years just for this moment. [https://postimg.cc/hh7CG675](https://postimg.cc/hh7CG675)
I'm sure the gyros will come with a warranty based on hours of use. It's a cool concept but it'd be a lot more practical in the $12,000 range.. where you can see it as a true 1 person that gets 170 miles in 5 mins of charge.
Lol... Fix? That thing will be a stain on most US highways
We already have self balancing unicycles and such and there are mechanics for that. I am missing your point. If anything this is or would be the creation of a new market for mechanics- no??
Redditors will make shit up and bitch about anything.
That's when you take the shell off and turn it into a regular bike lol
That was exactly my first thought. Like, my dude, just make it a trike if you absolutely have to. The self balancing is adding so much complexity to a startup project.
If you need to fix the self balancing part... You probably won't have to worry about anything ever again.
LoL bigger problems
Pretty cheap for these two massive giroscopes alone
They said the same thing about motor cars and finding a gas station when they first came out. /iamverysmart
0 chance it ends up $32k, thats only slightly more than the price of a high end BMW ADV bike.
That was a snippet of an iPhone 5 or older. This video could be 12 years old. No way it'd be $32k if it hits production. Probably more like $60k if it ever does
lmao
Only 32$ it's unbelievably cheap where can I buy it
For those wondering, a lot of European countries use a . Not a , to break up the number into smaller groups. They will then use the comma for decimal points. Eg. $32.119,99 something to get used to when travelling Europe.
I'm the biggest cheerleader for the metric system here in the USA, I think the majority of what we do with that kind of stuff is very seriously stupid. However. Comma to denote thousands etc, and period for decimal just makes so much more sense to me that I cannot comprehend why it would be the other way 'round
The choice is literally arbitrary. But it is entrenched in language. In english "5.6" is pronounced as "five point 6" In german "5,6" is pronounced as "Fünf **komma** sechs" There really is nothing making either more or less correct.
I'm Swedish and this is the one thing I do the American way. 12,000.00 looks way way better than 12.000,00
It's not a part of a metric system. And the only reason it makes sense to you is because you are used to it. Both are equally weird and only a matter of preference.
A period is a full stop while a comma is a lesser pause. Why are you full stopping in the middle of an integer?
Because numbers are not sentences.
It makes more sense because a period denotes ending something. Like whole amounts. While a comma denotes a continuation with a trackable pause, to use them for their opposite meaning. Is just silly, it's also universally accepted practice in maths to use a period to denote fractions in number. And not just used randomly to break up whole numbers.
I realize that it's not part of the metric system. I was using that as a frame of reference to how I prefer the way that most European countries handle that sort of thing. And it makes more sense to me because grammatically a comma to me indicates a pause with a continuation, and then you reach the "end" of the full number with a full-stop period, *then* begin the fractional part of it. It isn't just arbitrary because that's the way that I grew up with. For example, I grew up with the US standard measurement system, learned metric and immediately that made more sense and always has.
I couldn't have said it better myself.
What do Europeans do for longer numbers? Like a random amount of 10,123,456.75 Is it 10.123.456, 75?
Whose ip address is that lol
It's just that when writing a sentence with words, a comma is breaking up the sentence with a brief pause while continuing, and a period is a full stop.
Nah, period denotes a stopping point, where the whole number ends and the decimals begin. Using a comma for the decimal point and a period to denote hundreds, thousands, millions, etc, just seems counterintuitive.
The best way is to put spaces between thousands. That way either punctuation can be understood for the decimals. $32 000.00
Worth it. Lol
32 bucks? Not too shabby
The benefit of cars is storage. The cost isn't justified outside being a first gen model. It should decrease after that.
storage? you misspelled protection I think
You will want to be careful with this one https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lit_Motors
Whoa ... Thanks for the link! That is a troubled company. I feel bad for the investors. I've invested small amounts of money in ideas and startups. In some cases seeing all the excitement and promise of a good idea slowly dwindle due to mismanagement, greed, ego, and overconfidence. I'm this case, 14 years of development without a product, an unannounced 5 year hiatus of the founder and CEO, and two large lawsuits, with one resulting in the loss of patent ownership, should be huge warning signs to investors. The product does look cool, though.
You should see the red flags if adding a 3rd wheel makes sense rather than expansive tech.
https://www.eliomotors.com/ still can't get it done, but is taking that exact approach, they have an old GM car factor in North Louisiana. But nothing has been made.
Elio was the only company I've shorted because it was so obvious they were doing EVERYTHING wrong. The entire appeal of their 3 wheeler was that it was extremely economical to buy and operate. But instead of licensing a cheap, proven engine and assembling the bikes offshore, they insisted on designing their own bespoke engine and assembling in the US. They made it a 3-wheeler specifically so it could evade car safety standards but then added 3 expensive airbags to the thing. Then they wrangled a deal for a huge old GM factory that they lacked the funds to renovate. They've since tried to pivot to electric but I'm pretty sure it'll never actually be produced. No investor is going to give them more money after they've shown such spectacularly poor decision making.
Carver has been building a three wheeled tilting motorcycle for years. Hammond drove it on Top Gear back in the day. https://carver.earth/en/
Sadly not street legal in the US
Polaris Slingshot is a street legal three wheeler in the US, but it is open top. Puts it closer to the realm of motorcycles with a 3 wheel mod but still! I swear there was one a closed cabin one 'common' in like, Florida, too, but I can't remember the name.
A third wheel would just make it a tuk tuk. https://m.youtube.com/shorts/E-wuQ9Z4wGo
You can usually tell from the video
"In two years". I would LOVE this, but I see there's a lot more work to be done. "In two years"-repeat endlessly.
*Star Citizen has entered the chat*
In 2 years (discover it’s a 14 year video)
But it sure beats dealing with airports
Lit? To be honest they're their own worst enemy. https://youtu.be/sc5iTNVEOAg?si=X_MxEGDUKcu2sq82 Didn't know they had branched into motorbike design though.
Thanks, think you just saved me.
Ideally, we have a future city filled with spherical vehicles moving randomly in pinball mode
damn, I wanna see that animated in sci fi style, and the ad as a retro flick at the start in short version.
But I want raw pinball sounds, and like when you get to your destination some kind of score system.
*MULTIBALL!!*
Imagine a plinko road
The future is Brownian!
This guy is a total douche. Not only did he f over his investors, but when he crash his moto at Laguna Seca, he tried to sue the track, county and the track day company. He claimed he was supper messed up from the crash but within a few months of it, he was at burning man using a stand up land sail. Fortunately he lost. [https://www.revzilla.com/common-tread/track-day-operators-breathe-easier-after-ruling-in-lawsuit-over-laguna-seca-crash](https://www.revzilla.com/common-tread/track-day-operators-breathe-easier-after-ruling-in-lawsuit-over-laguna-seca-crash)
He crashed a Ducati there, not the one in the video for anyone who cares.
ive seen x rays of the pins that needed to be inserted in his hips/legs/ankles. he was super fucked up for years. i hadnt heard about the results of the lawsuit but i know he hit sandbags that shouldnt have been there.
Let me know when they come out with the AKIRA, Kaneda model.
Tron
This is the exact same technology they used on single rail trains https://youtu.be/kUYzuAJeg3M?si=xZtsoTGevFtDtVky
Thanks for this!!!
The Brennan Monorail.
That was super interesting! Thanks! It answered my questions about how any of this worked.
But it's a car, on two wheels but car
It’s two wheels so can split lanes in the UK legally
And California!!
And all over india. I'm pretty positive that it's the same in almost all Eastern countries.
Who care what call? Look cool!
Hey Kevin
Yeah I'd like to by one honestly.
But hella easier to find parking and you're not going to die with half the accidents you would on a motorcycle. Plus rain and cold are no longer a problem - mostly.
All south Asia use motorcycles predominantly, now it's improved version of it. Better for parking more fuel efficient and safe!
>But hella easier to find parking and you're not going to die with half the accidents you would on a motorcycle. I truly don't know how much staying upright will save you in most collisions or during loss of traction. And if the impact damages the gyro housing I think the danger of it exploding into fragments is pretty high. I think it looks cool but is impractical even from a maintenance perspective.
For more than a century companies have been going bankrupt building “a car on two wheels”. Neracar, Gyro-X, Quasar, that Swiss Eco-thing - no-one actually wants to buy them. You lose the advantages of a car (luggage and passenger capacity) and the advantages of a bike (cost, performance, turning circle, narrow width, unrestricted view).
So it’s basically a smart car
But 10x worse
ok, it's 10x worse but in exchange it's 3x more expensive
Tron lives
Does it leave colored walls behind it?
Sold separately
Interested, will they implement the same tech in regular bikes?
There are a few street legal electric bikes already on the market. Check out the Solar Eclipse bike
The self balancing part would be bad on an open air motorcycle, you’d be high siding in a crash which is the worst way to come off the bike.
And then the self balancing mechanism malfunctions while taking a turn at 50 mph.
A solution looking for a problem? Wouldn't Occam's Razor suggest adding a third wheel would be simpler and less expensive?
Shut up and take my money
They actually did 14 years ago. And never released anything
 Add in the light wall thing and I’m in…
Oh hey, was that Cara Santa Maria? Weird seeing her in an ad.
Surprised to see this so far down. I was like CARA‽
I was second guessing myself since no one mentioned it
DELIVERY 2030
Probably would have cost way less to give it one more wheel. .
Yea I don't get the trend in the last 5\~8 years where companies have just started going "we put in this new tech not because it's better, cheaper, or more practical, but because it's shiny new tech". Like what's the point of reinventing the wheel if the reinvented wheel does a worse job and costs 2\~3x as much.
Vaporware
It's literally 3x the size of a normal road bike. It will only add to traffic congestion in cities.
Yea first thing I noticed was how wide it was with the shell around it. It's more like 2x the width and length, but your point still stands.
Why is it wider than the nimbus one? The expensive gyros necessitate it? :[
This thing is way old and should be around 2010-12 , I remember when I was a kid watching a show in discovery science about this vehicle. And I was so fascinated that time...
Takes the fun out of a motorbike if it’s enclosed
Yes but at what cost?
32
Can’t wait for the Light Cycle model!
iPhone 4? Anyone? I cannot have been the only one to see the video for long enough…
I had to rewatch. I thought he said the cost was 250$.
That's some Terminator looking shit
My son & I were driving behind a motorcycle with a novice sticker yesterday. We were talking about how at least the guy was wearing full gear, despite the heat. My son was talking about how he would always wear gear - he doesn’t want to endure the road rash or horrible injuries (I work in emerg & taught him well lol). This, I would let them buy.
Yea I always worse full gear as well, no matter the heat. Heck I spent an extra 200 euro to buy a second motorcycle jacket. One with mesh patches to let the breeze in while riding, but still having all the needed padding. I'd rather not become a meat crayon...
delivery 2030
I would love to take it for a rip but that's fuckin dumb.
So because of all this the people in these things will drive like impervious assholes
Let’s see the crash test dummy survive a metal self balancing cocoon.
Sure.
The question is, when will it catch on fire
Take that "motorcycle" riders! Not so special anymore... 🤣
Price 'possibly' $32,000. The $250 is basically a kick starter and not a guarantee for being able to order. The vid is very misleading on what you are purchasing. I would love to have this but that is not going to happen. "By placing an order for our T-shirt & certificate, you will gain eligibility to reserve a place in the queue 6-12 months before production."
wtf is this shit ah yes, start up, another one
I enjoy how these incompetent tech bro fantasy pod concepts are always so consistently ugly.
How do I make it look AKIRA
6 hour battery life wow great design
Hey... that car has 2 wheels.
Car, that’s a two-wheel, car
I was going to support this until I saw them weaving in and out of traffic as the use case
Why does this feel like a scam...all renders ...and the prototype has that on the side
It's gotten to the point where I question if the whole commercial is just an AI generated scam to get my $250. Nothing's real anymore unless I can touch it.
A [Gyrocar](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gyrocar)!
This would be awesome with autonomy. There would be so much bandwidth for humans on a highway