schönschräg

Grenoble (France), 27 February 2015

How to drive in a tight parallel parking space? Of course forward. How to get out of this? Best backwards. How are accidents around the bend? Haarscharf ran to the corner, like a slalom skier. If you have answered the questions as well, you are ready. Ready for some driving school hours, or ?? for the Toyota i-Road. For in this crazy electric tricycle pretty much everything is so different. We have embarked on the thing and it went in Grenoble, where it is offered as a car-sharing mobile.

Funny curve mechanics

Before riding a driver training is mandatory, and for good reason. Inside everything is indeed quite normal: There's a seat ( even two if you look closely ), a strap, a steering wheel, a speedometer, two pedals, a few keys for automatic modes. So far everything well, but when I may see it the coach as he wags on the emptied space around the pylons, but a bit uncomfortable to me. The three-wheeled thing is coming very dangerous in the curve. In principle, the i-Road is structured as a three-wheeled scooter this, the two front tires and have a back. Unlike a bicycle or motorcycle, the curve slope is not caused by shifting weight of the driver, but raises by a mechanism that lowers a front wheel and the other.

The rear-wheel steering makes things tricky

Curve slope alone is now nothing really Batty, even if it is caused by a servomotor. The whole thing is crazy by not, the front axle is steered, as with any decent car, but the rear axle ?? more specifically, the rear wheel. And the fact that this is so far behind the driver. In the graph, so the tail swings out wide. You have to watch gemeinst so that no one takes pillar, wall corners, fenders or passers ?? mind on the outside of the curve, to which one seldom thinks, for example, as cyclists. When I Road can go wrong, you have to leave it on the brain, rather than relying on decades sharpened instincts. It's a little hard to explain, so let's start slowly, with my training.

How to get just around the corner?

My trainer shows first, as you do not go around the corner to the i-Road. If you do it that is the same as with the car, then you steer too late ?? the steered wheel is so far behind. Instead, it is targeting sharp corner (or in the case of training, the pylons), and then draws ever, when the front wheel has achieved this. The rear part swings around, and it's over. Now it is important to let go of the steering wheel quickly, so it zurückschnalzt. What a bad habit is to the automobile, here is the crucial trick is the only way to get fast enough back into the straight-ahead. Next, I want to park between a few pylons along. By car you drive backwards and forwards in the gap inside out again. On my i-Road it's just the opposite. Clean driving is so pretty easily, but moving out quite difficult. Good thing the parking space here not of Porsches and Rolls Royces-bounded, but of plastic pylons, and no rush vorbeipfeift the parking space.

A smile in every passer face

After about twenty minutes, my training is complete and I can criss-cross through nozzles Grenoble. Not quite easy to cyclists in herds come in a city where there is a crosswalk every twenty feet from all sides and where you often need to pass through the bus when turning right. But if it's not just going through the thickest bustle, it 's really fun: The curve slope is fun, and my bright green vehicle puts a smile on the faces of the startled pedestrians. Little boys suggest the strange tricycle, and now and you reap an incredulous shake of the head, if you skew depends on the curve just once.

Not quite easily: gain distance

Cornering makes the i-road course, the most fun, especially at full tilt. Only you must never abandon themselves to a fun, otherwise it makes Peng, and the ride is over. It is pretty tricky when you went there in parallel too close to a parked car. How to Survive the dangerous neighborhood? Just give in and give gas does not go before, because then you can take the rump straight into the parked car. So nice and slow weglenken small-angle and hope that the space is sufficient. So I did it anyway. Only much later, when I think about it again, it occurs to me: I would have to reverse course.

Have fun, but do not forget to recharge

Then it goes to the charging station. Right, the i-Road 's an electric vehicle. Given the Curve Features of the drive unit almost a side issue, but at the very latest after 50 kilometers you have to think about it, then the juice is made ​​. In practice creates loud Toyota more like 30 bis 35 km ?? depending on driving style. And depending on the temperature, as in cold go lithium-ion batteries quickly known in the knee. On our ride had about ten degrees, which is pretty cool, if you have a maximum speed 45 ?? the vehicle could also be 60 km / h create, but is governed for approval purposes ?? injected through the city. Especially cool it if you do not zukriegt the two windows is equal. After all, the thing has glass panels, but they are pulled up by hand on a string and fixed up by a magnet on the frame, also pretty crazy.

What is noise insulation? What is comfort?

And another thing: The i-Road is quite Rappelkiste. Anyone who has ever drove it over cobblestones, knows what is meant. Suspension seems to have no fun car, noise insulation certainly not, and there is no comfort. Radio or heater in vain, the air conditioning is accomplished by opening and closing the window. A case of beer will hardly fit on the back seat, but the trend is supposedly anyway rather to Sixpack. In addition, the i-Road is just a fun car and not a vile transport.

Change of residence is a prerequisite

You 're interested in this unconventional tilt mobile? You are a good driver ( like 99 percent of all Germans, when asked about their self-assessment ), and can drive during sleep, with any kind of vehicle curves of all kinds? Then you have to be strong now, because you can buy the i-Road no. You should move to Grenoble, because you can ride the thing. 35 pieces of which are offered there as car-sharing vehicles. Cite Lib by Ha: mo 's planned for three years, new experimental project. Borrowing costs three euros for the first quarter of an hour, two euros for the second and each subsequent one euro, so that you pay for an hour seven euros. This is more expensive than public transport, but also much more fun.

Conclusion: A totally crazy tricycle

CEO Akio Toyoda is crazy about driving pleasure: Toyota models should be " fun to drive ", he has. This may have to do with sportsmanship something like the Toyota GT86. Does it not, as the totally unsportsmanlike i-road shows. Making, especially in the curve a lot of fun. The tricycle is primarily an unusual but fun car to fit well with the colors like poison green, buttercup-yellow and pink. This vehicle is striking. If you enjoy, and happy times does something crazy, the i-Road will like. Find more of a beer serious, practical transportation? Have you fallen in love with the comfort and safety of your modern car, you did a back problem or are otherwise sensitive? Then let the finger from i-Road. A Macke other hand does not hurt, because you have to be a little crazy for the i-road already . ( sl)

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