autoevolution
 

VeloMetro's Veemo Wants to Fuse Electric Cars, Bikes and Ride-Sharing Apps

Recent automotive experiences have shown us that attempts at combining the best of two worlds have resulted in vehicles that weren’t particularly good at anything, compromising on too many aspects and failing to deliver the promised versatility.
VeloMetro Veemo 1 photo
Photo: VeloMetro
Take the Renault Twizy, for example. That electric quad was supposed to offer transportation for two with the mobility of a motorcycle and the comfort of a car. Instead, it was just a very small four-wheeled vehicle that couldn’t be driven like a bike (no lane splitting) and offered no comfort whatsoever, having to deal with rain, wind and on top of it all, a non-existent suspension system. And we can go even further back to the BMW C1 scooter that thought that the one thing a scooter needed to feel like a car on two wheels was a roof. Which obviously proved to be false.

Now, VeloMetro is trying to do the same thing by merging electric vehicles and bicycles. That’s what they’re saying, because from what we see we’re dealing with a sort of a three-wheeled Renault Twizy that doesn’t even come with the benefit of a second seat. There is one main difference, though, and it has to do with the new vehicle’s classification: it’s registered as a bicycle, not a car, so it doesn’t require a driver’s license to operate.

The enclosed vehicle (completely, unlike the Twizy) is called Veemo and is obviously aimed at urban and suburban driving. It gets a top speed of 32 km/h (20 mph), which means that driving it on the road is out of the question, unless you don’t mind being beaten by the drivers every two kilometers. Because even though Veemo is classified as a bike, it is still wider than the two-wheeled vehicles and so it will take up more road space.

But Veemo is created to run on dedicated bicycle lanes, where its top speed won’t be a problem - in fact, the exact opposite might be true, and overtaking could prove difficult in some cases. The electric vehicle comes with a 100 km (62 miles) range that should be enough to cover most people’s daily needs.

The velo mobile is designed to be part of a vehicle-sharing program in Vancouver, one of the cities with the best bicycle infrastructure outside Holland. If everything goes according to plan, Veemo will become the vehicle of choice for many Vancouver residents when they need to move within the city. A smartphone app will let the users locate and open the closest Veemo they can find, while drop off will be allowed at any location inside the coverage area. VeloMetro says that Veemo will be designed from the ground up to be cheap, but it will still cost tremendously more than a regular bike.

Which brings us to the greatest caveat of this type of vehicles: we still fail to see their benefits over the good old bicycle, except on a rainy day and for people who can’t pedal for medical reasons. But that being said, if Veemo and other similar transport solutions succeed in reducing the number of cars on the road, then they’ve just found another supporter.

If you liked the article, please follow us:  Google News icon Google News Youtube Instagram X (Twitter)
About the author: Vlad Mitrache
Vlad Mitrache profile photo

"Boy meets car, boy loves car, boy gets journalism degree and starts job writing and editing at a car magazine" - 5/5. (Vlad Mitrache if he was a movie)
Full profile

 

Would you like AUTOEVOLUTION to send you notifications?

You will only receive our top stories