These Companies Think the Next Big Thing Is Very Tiny Cars
Startups and established automakers are launching three-wheeled vehicles and other minimalist designs.
The three-wheeled Arcimoto is one vision of what a car that can’t do everything might look like.
Photographer: Mark Ralston/Getty ImagesRelative to a conventional sedan, an Arcimoto vehicle lacks: one wheel, two doors, three seats, a heater, an air conditioner, a trunk, a combustion engine and scads of air bags and cup holders. Of course, minimalism is the point of creating a vehicle that needs less parking space, requires smaller driving lanes and doesn’t directly emit carbon dioxide.
For those who subscribe to a less-is-more aesthetic, this electric vehicle may be a high point of auto design. It’s going to become either a prophecy of the weirder future of urban transportation or an anemic, goofy-looking golf cart looked back on as a joke.