https://insideevs.com/news/781631/european-union-e-car-plan/
This new class of vehicle, called “E car,” will have lower technical requirements to reduce costs.
New cars, even small ones, have become very expensive, and one reason for that is the mandatory safety equipment that has to be legally sold in the European Union. But the EU wants to change that for city cars, creating a new class of vehicles that will have less safety gear on them, specifically to bring down their acquisition price.
So commuting an errand EVs. I posted yesterday that 40% of Chinese EV consumers wanted EVs with less range and battery packs. They didn’t need capacity and didn’t want to pay for that increased range.
Making these vehicles even more attractive will be a system of tax exemptions, which should further incentivize people to choose them. So while they will be less safe than a regular vehicle that has to meet all the safety criteria, they will be considerably safer than quadricycles such as the Citroen Ami and others coming in from China, which don’t have to go through the battery of safety (and crash) tests that a normal car has to undergo.
These new E cars will be crash tested and offer similar structural rigidity to larger vehicles, but they will have fewer active safety aids. The goal is to make small city cars 10-20% cheaper than they are today, and this will be achieved by removing systems such as autonomous emergency braking, drowsiness and driver attention detection systems or the lane keeping assist functionality.
A smart move methinks. There is a market such a class of EV. Especially in Europe where there is mass transit options to travel longer distances.