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)
At the same time though, I wouldn’t want to see this in a bike lane, because as a biker, it would hurt a helluva lot more to get in a collision with. Might even be too wide for the lane. But I wouldn’t want it in the street, either, as it would be too slow and much smaller than cars, i.e. more vulnerable. I feel like this would only really work if there was extremely widespread adoption
Yeah, definitely, and I think that’s (unfortunately) why we haven’t seen anything like this make it mainstream. Imo, they’re most compelling as a wholesale replacement for private cars, especially in dense urban neighborhoods. Instead of 2-ton chunks of steel hurtling by at 50 km/h, have a 100-kg (?) glorified tricycles cruising at 25 km/h. The lower top speeds would not only be great for general safety, but it would also discourage them becoming too dominant (like cars have), as they’d be too slow to allow for super long commutes from all the way out in the sprawling suburbs; instead, people would use them for shorter trips and use rapid transit for longer trips.
But with current bike lanes and car-dominated streets, I don’t think we’re likely to ever see something like this take off. It would definitely take a very forward-thinking and committed city council to build the infrastructure to make these viable.
The closest existing thing I’m aware of is Peachtree City, GA, aka the city of golf carts: https://youtu.be/pcVGqtmd2wM?si=6mqxbwk98vj6ItJo
This has already taken off, just not with people: https://www.google.com/search?q=lastenrad+paketzustellung&tbm=isch
https://cargo.mubea-umobility.com/
And yes, they are a bit of an issue, but way less than ordinary delivery vehicles parking on bike lanes and sidewalks.
Most of the places these make sense it would make even more sense to have a good public transit system. What is left if camp grounds, flee markets, golf courses…