Why on Project Neodrive

Problem

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Passenger cars account for roughly 12% of the European Union’s total CO₂ emissions, and transport as a whole for about a quarter; the only major sector whose emissions remain above their 1990 level.
Yet climate impact is only part of the problem.

For everyday mobility, cars are fundamentally inefficient and oversized.
A typical car consumes around 10 to 100 times more energy per kilometre than a bicycle, depending on the speed and the vehicle compared (see the measured comparison in Chapter 5), while carrying on average 1.4 people in a 5-seat vehicle.

Approach

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

We start from a simple observation:
for most daily trips, neither cars nor bikes fully match human needs.

Cars provide comfort, protection, and a sense of safety but at a high environmental and spatial cost.
Bikes are extremely efficient but often fail on comfort, cargo capacity, weather protection, perceived safety in traffic, and require physical effort.

Neodrive explores what exists between these two extremes, deliberately seeking a balance between user needs and environmental limits.
We aim not for perfection in one dimension, but for a thoughtful compromise that serves people and the planet. We aim to operate as close as possible to true needs without indulging in excess.

Designing for Humans

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Mobility is not only a technical problem.
It is a question of values and human needs.

I - Optimization Is Never Neutral

Every transport system optimizes something: speed, cost, energy, comfort, safety.
As soon as we compare these dimensions, we make a choice about what matters more, and that choice is never neutral.

Some variables are relatively objective: travel time, distance, energy use, cost, injury per km.
Others are deeply subjective: perceived time, comfort, effort, stress, sense of safety, dignity.

Living Within Limits

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Human mobility operates within physical and ecological boundaries.
These limits are not political opinions.
They are hard constraints imposed by the planet.

I - Planetary Limits Are Not Negotiable

Climate change is the clearest signal that humanity is exceeding planetary limits.
Even though the CO₂ we emit represents only a tiny fraction of the atmosphere, it acts like a thermal blanket: trapping infrared radiation, raising global temperatures, and destabilizing weather patterns.

The laws of Physics

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

There are the laws of men, and the laws of nature. The latter cannot be broken. Dura lex, sed lex! At human scale, a few parameters dominate almost everything.

I - Mass matters everywhere

Weight drives almost everything: the resources needed to build a vehicle, the energy required for every acceleration, climb, or stop.
It increases rolling resistance, amplifies non-exhaust pollution, and multiplies the energy involved in crashes.

Reducing mass is one of the most effective ways to reduce environmental and safety impact across the system.
Higher mass requires heavier tires, often with worse rolling resistance and more particle generation, which compounds the inefficiency.

Making It Viable

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Building a sustainable mobility system is not primarily a question of physics or engineering.
It is a question of incentives, lock-in, capital allocation, and coordination.

Markets, capitalism, and funding mechanisms impose hard constraints. Ignoring them does not make them disappear. This page is an attempt to design within them.

I - Markets are Merciless

Markets do not optimize for justice, sustainability, or long-term collective outcomes but only for Pareto efficiency. They optimize only under strict assumptions:

The Missing Layer

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

The previous chapter concluded that we cannot out-car the car, and that survival depends on reusing existing industrial ecosystems rather than inventing our own.

This chapter is about what happens when you try to do exactly that, and discover that for this class of vehicle, the ecosystem is not open to anyone buying fewer than a few hundred units and that even when it lets you in, what you get still needs a great deal of work before it is usable.