Monday, September 2, 2013

The Future Of Transportation - More Trikes - Speed Limits

In Merrie Olde England trikes are pretty much all kit vehicles. The Morgan is a production vehicle sticking as closely as possible to the design of the original. Most of the others are variations on the 1950 Morgan theme with a couple of Can-Am like motorcycle conversions.

The article almost has enough information to be useful, but actual performance info was skipped in the interest of brevity. No 0-60 times, quarter mile times, fuel economy info or skid pad data. Just price and a website pointer although I suppose some of the sites would have at least some of that information.

The Telegraph did manage to assemble some 11 marques for comparison and mentioned that others were unavailable for testing. This is most likely attributable to very low production numbers. Interesting to note at least is that every one of the modern trikes is of the 2-in-front type. At least the basic design error of the Reliant Robin is not being replicated.

The speed limits are in proposed E.U. regulations to reduce auto-related fatalities by electronically limiting the top speed of vehicles to 70 mph. FWIW, a lot of U.S. built vehicles already have electronic speed limiting at about (+/-???) 110 mph. This wonderful safety feature is not generally advertised as it's not actually required in the U.S. and in at least one case it's there to keep the vehicle from self-destructing if it's driven very much faster than this.

Like most laws restricting the peasantry, I expect this one will include exceptions for police, military, and high government officials.

1 comment:

jed said...

Well, those are all just sweet! I would happily own and drive any of them -- at least the ones with a reverse, which is most of them. Interesting to see the predominance of the V-twin engine -- perhaps a nod to the influence of the Morgan. I had thought some about a Guzzi mill as a possibility, were I to be in a position to build one, though the old Honda Silverwing could work as well.

The major downside with each of these is the open cockpit. I suppose it's a plus, depending on why you're owning the thing.