It’s been over seven years since we first saw the adorable Microlino, a Swiss company’s modern interpretation of the BMW Isetta — the lovable front-door-having post-World War II German microcar. Now the Microlino is actually here, and you know what? My heart thinks it’s absolutely fantastic, but at the same time, my head realizes it’s quite terrible. Here, let me explain.
I’m currently attending the always-excellent German Car of the Year event near Frankfurt, Germany, meaning I have access to 70 fantastic automobiles, so get ready for a bunch of Micro-reviews (in this case, literally!). If you’re an Autopian member, you can actually tell me which vehicle you most want me to drive, and I’ll go drive it! Most requested by members was the Microlino, which is a mini-car/quadricycle (and thus doesn’t have to pass as strict crash tests) built in Italy but engineered by Swiss small vehicle-maker Micro Mobility Solutions. Here’s a pitch-slide from a Microlino presentation about how it’s trying to clean up the earth by getting people into its small vehicles:
And here are the 17 horsepower, 8ft 3inch-long Microlino’s basic specs:
And here’s a look how the chassis has changed during the car’s (Microlino doesn’t like to call it a car) rather long development cycle:
Anyway, so those are the basic specs. 17 horsepower, about 1000 pounds without battery (1300 to 1400 with battery), up to 143 miles of range with the big 14 kWh battery on the European WLTP cycle (In the summer) — it all sounds good. But despite that and the Microlino’s great looks, the car is still deeply flawed.
I’m not a huge fan of “It’s good but also bad” headlines, but the Microlino really deserves this one. I’ll explain.
Getting into the car involves pressing the little button between the key hole on the right side of the car and the “Microlino” text. You can see the key hole, squishy black button, and text on the black trim piece above; it sits just below the right headlight, the back side of which acts as a side mirror. Pressing that switch pops open the front door latch; a pneumatic strut pushes the door open slowly:
The open door reveals a bench up front and a steering column that, unlike on the BMW Isetta, does not move away with the door, but rather remains in place on the left side of the vehicle. To get to the driver’s side, you enter the front right side of the vehicle and shift over into the driver’s seat.
There’s actually quite a bit of room inside. There’s a cup holder and storage cubby on the right, along with a bluetooth speaker jammed between that cubby area and the seat. On the left side is a rotary dial shifter, and there are a few other small storage pouches, plus a hazard switch in the center on the back side of the front door, and USB outlets below that (there are also USB outlets in the cubby on the right).
There’s no airbag, and there’s also no horn on the steering wheel — that is found on the turn signal stalk to left of the column. Also to the left is the rotary dial, which you can see here:
Up front, the gauge cluster shows battery state of charge, distance traveled, time, date (which is wrong in the image below), vehicle speed, and gear shift position. On the bar to the right of the gauge cluster are four HVAC touch-screen buttons to turn on the fan or the heater.
Overall build quality seemed…just OK. There were some ill-fitting trim bits like this one to the left of the shifter, on the vertical surface; but overall, it wasn’t horrible:
To drive the car, you have to put the key into the ignition, turn it, place the shifter into neutral, then into drive, then release the park brake (that’s a regular hand brake to the left of the bench), and then, upon pressing the accelerator pedal, you’re off. Here’s some driving footage:
Right away, what becomes obvious is that the Microlino is quick, but also loud — really loud. Like, Shouldn’t-Be-This-Loud-Isn’t-This-An-EV? loud. All the noise comes from the rear under the cargo area, where the motor and gearbox sit. Here’s a look at the drive motor and rear independent suspension:
Here you can see the front suspension:
And here you can see the bottom of the battery tray. The battery sending power to the 17 horsepower motor can be had in 6 kW, 10.5kW and 14 kW variants.
The suspension is fine on smooth streets, and handles well enough around turns, but over cobblestone roads, which are frequent in old cities in Europe, where the Microlino would be at its best otherwise, the ride gets rather jarring.
Forward visibility is good, except when you have to turn. You’re supposed to look ahead to where you’re headed, and if you do that while turning left or right, you’ll be looking directly at a giant pillar. It’s not ideal:
Rear visibility is OK, but the lack of a rearview mirror is unacceptable. Just put a small one at the center of the windscreen; it won’t take up that much room. What’s more, this car should have a backup camera:
Backing up isn’t that hard, but the issue is that it’s hard to know what’s down below the rear glass; where is that rear bumper relative to another car or, say, a wall? I’m sure one would get used to parking this vehicle without a rearview camera, but it’d be nice, especially for $20,000, which is what the basic model costs.
Actually, this one that I was driving, which is the “Pioneer” with the mid-size 10.5 kWh battery, costs in Germany closer to $25,000 when converted from Euro. That’s more than a Ford Maverick; there should definitely be a rearview mirror and a backup camera for that price.
Hell, there should probably also be air conditioning. As nice as that manually-retractable sunroof is (the sliding side windows are…fine), I bet things would get toasty in that Microlino in the summer, especially in traffic down south in say, Italy, where the car is built.
So the Microlino is a bit loud, it doesn’t ride that well, it’s got some blind spots, it doesn’t have AC, it doesn’t have a rearview mirror, it doesn’t have an airbag, it doesn’t have a backup camera, and its interior quality could be better. But its most egregious fault has to do with opening the front door, which is extremely important, since it is the door one must use to exit the vehicle unless you want to squish yourself through the sunroof or go through the rear door. Look at the photo above; look very carefully. Can you figure out how to get out?
I couldn’t. It took me forever. In fact, I had to be shown how to get out, because, for whatever reason, it appears that Microlino intentionally hid the button behind the front HVAC bar:
I tried jamming my phone back there to take a photo of the button; here’s what I snapped:
See the little black nub on the back side of that bar? That’s how you get out of the car through its only door.
Lord is this nonsense. And such an unforced error that could be easily fixed with a two cent sticker.
So it’s $25 grand for a fun, but deeply flawed microcar that can do about 110 miles of range (again, the bigger 14 kW battery can apparently do 143), doesn’t have a rearview mirror, doesn’t have an airbag, doesn’t have AC, doesn’t have a backup camera, rides poorly on cobblestone roads, is loud, and hell, I haven’t even mentioned how mediocre those manual brakes are.
And yet, I’d still love to own one. Not at that price, but definitely in a few years if I can snag a used one for about half that. Just look at how happy that random pedestrian is in the photo above. He wanted to sit in the Microlino; why? Because it drips with soul, and that makes up for all of this machine’s rather numerous deficiencies.
Ouch! (this one surely deserves the FFS treatment)
$25k!? FFS!
I’m with you, that’s terrible but I still want one. Where are you finding these sub $25K Mavericks?
$25k !!!!
No AC, manual brakes, no airbag, seats 2.
What is the value proposition over just getting a mildly used Corolla or something?
I guess the fact that it is entirely EV may allow one to drive downtown in some European cities that are starting to restrict car access, which I understand, but that goes against their use case for the Mircolino of “medium/long distances up to 200km”.
I don’t know. I’m confused.
Thanks for the fun review though!
David, I am sure Jason has already asked, but what is the lighting like on the car? Turn signals, headlights(sidelights?) etc?
THIS is the type of review that I come to this site for. Weird car, great info, interesting take. Keep it up!
The one front door “car” was a bad idea 70 years ago, and it still is.
Thank you. Great review that showed stuff I haven’t seen before.
This is a very frustrating vehicle, primarily because they got so many things right. The look and size are perfect. The suspension looks really well engineered and they spent some money on tooling but is very poorly tuned. The noise is unfortunate but ok for short trips. The ergonomics are the biggest fail. I can forgive the A-pillars because of the structure requirements. This was clearly designed around the Isetta look and not the passengers but to ignore door latches and mirrors makes you question their process. And everyone buying one should tick the AC option or they will be cooked alive.
Now let’s talk marketing. A city car can be a lifestyle statement or a tool. This is trying to be both and I’m not sure it works. Either put in the good stuff (ride, NVH, materials, AC) and price it premium or make it utilitarian and price it cheap. This is too expensive for a transportation appliance and not premium enough for a rich plaything, Bluetooth speaker notwithstanding.
I’m glad that car exists, but I’m disappointed at the price range. Is it that hard to do a Changli with some refinement without it costing 10 to 20 times more?
Seriously. They must be getting a 300% margin on that thing.
Custom engineering and tooling for low volume is expensive. They’ve been working on this thing for years so I doubt they break even until they sell 5000 of them.
Exactly this
Anywhere other than China? Yes. This car was developed from the ground up. That ain’t cheap, unfortunately.
It’s being built by Cecomp in Turin, an extremely low volume contract manufacturer that’s more familiar with homologation specials and one-off show cars, doesn’t make for cheap per unit costs
I get that the hump with the shifter on it is mostly the wheel well, but it doesn’t look like that interior would be comfortable for anyone with a left leg.
As for the sound, it’s sounds a lot like driving us to Citroen Ami, though that noise is fine because it’s meant to be a cheap vehicle, not a premium $25k city vehicle
I’m a huge fan of microcars generally and the Isetta specifically. Such a different way of thinking about things. I love this article.
The suspension engineering is actually fairly interesting.
First, how many cars have double wishbone in rear but not in front? I’ve never heard of one.
Secondly, there appears to be no sway bars. That’s surprising, especially considering how NHTSA-approved big OEM-looking the suspension in general is. The last vehicle I saw without sway bars was a golf cart with Chinese-lookin control arms and more camber on one wheel than the other.
The fit/finish seems about on-par with recent Fords, which isn’t terrible for a small boutique-style operation in Turin that’s been sort of off/on with series production over the decades. Personally, I’m happy with deleting a/c, backup camera, and airbags if it keeps the price down, but there’s absolutely no excuse for not having a rearview mirror, I guess the original Isetta didn’t have one, but they’ve taken enough liberties with the design that I wouldn’t point to that as the hill to die on (the early British-built Isettas had reverse gears blocked out anyway, so it was a moot point on those ones, at least). And that door latch issue seems like it would have been crazy cheap and easy to do better during the design process. I mean, I’m not seeing any egregious issues that would keep me from owning one, if, say, I had a second home somewhere and wanted something to run around town and to the shops that could just sit on a tender with minimal maintenance requirements. Would still prefer a Nobe for that sort of thing, but the Microlino has the advantage of existing.
Is it possible to drive this thing with the front door open?
Better yet, with the front door OFF, Jeep style.
I’m glad you chose to drive and review this vehicle. It definitely stood out among the other choices.
The fact that it gets away with only needing about 100 Wh/mile in the city is testament to its low mass. I don’t imagine its aero is all that great. I bet range at 90 kph for the 14 kWh version is closer to 100 miles.
A lot more could be done with only 17 horsepower though. A smaller 1-seater vehicle with the size and drag of a velomobile and about twice the mass could accelerate like a normal car with 20x the horsepower, but still fall into the “heavy quadricycle” classification, which in Germany could legally be operated by 16 year olds. In some countries, 14 year olds could legally drive such a vehicle. And you could gear it to do 130-ish mph top speed with such slippery aero, so it could be Autobahn capable too. Potential market niche?
I’m reminded of two things;
I seriously think VW should have stuck w/ “Volts”wagen- that’s awesome!
DT – let me reiterate…
The dude cutting the YouTube video – how about no.
It looks like something a lazy sperm cell would drive in a futuristic race to the egg cell. Upon arrival simply crash into the plasma membranes, open that weird frunkdoor and release genetic material (i.e. climb in and lie down).
Sorry, the movie “Inner Space” came out about the same time I was learning about reproduction in school. Apparently I would have paid more attention if Martin Short was teaching that particular biology class.
Thank you for picking the one true greatest car on that list to review.
I am no longer legally required to disown you.
(Also, I need it. Also also, we need a lap time. How far is Nürburg?)
Also^3, I’m mildly amused that it sounds about as loud as the Formula E car I tested years ago.
…
I think that’s even more proof that it needs to go on the Nürburgring. YER RIGHT THERE ON THE SAME CONTINENT, MAN! You pretty much have to.
Holy crap, Rusty, it’s hard to imagine wanting to test the limits of the Microlino’s alleged 90kph top end. I’ll bet it feels faster. Have a soft spot for its ancestor and maybe, if I lived in a Del Webb village somewhere, this might be a fun choice, but for now I’m content to enjoy its charms vicariously.
On a brighter note, you’re in my old stomping grounds. Great memories of Frankfurt, Wiesbaden and Langen. Still have my old Stadtatlas because only the planes we flew had GPS nav systems in those days. I’d recommend a few favorite places for you to grab a beer, but I suspect most have long passed and you can get a good beer anywhere, as you know. Just remember the magic words: Noch ein Pils, bitte!
Don’t forget to call home and check on the kitties.
Maybe a parking sensor would suffice.
But I think for something in this concept to work in NA it would have to look like an ATV, rugged, higher, etc… because I don’t see the market getting any friendly to cute cars anytime soon
Maybe I missed something obvious, but why does it seem like they went with a electromechanical door latch, (in an attempt at luxury, perhaps) but skipped on so many basic items you’d find on the cheapest of regular vehicles? It seems like a case of mixed messages. If they went with a basic mechanical door latch, this cost cutting would make a lot more sense. Oh, and if it had been about $7000 less. That would help, too.
The Isetta styling exercise doesn’t really function well with this century’s demands and the price kills it and not in a good way.
Isettas weren’t styled as much as they just were a distinctive shape. I think the fundamental shape makes at least as much shape now as it ever did. This is advertised as being able to perpendicular park (although at 8’3″ I don’t think I would.)
Its many flaws are made up for by the largest frunk yet found in an EV.
Hah! We just bought our kid a non-electrified (i.e., kid-powered) scooter from this company for his 4th birthday. They seem to be the go-to choice for kids around here and seem to be well-engineered and well-made relative to the other kids’ scooters I’ve seen.
I had no idea this company was also making “cars” (using that term loosely).
Fantastisch!
A lot of us asked for a review of the Microlino, and I appreciate you humoring us. 🙂
The weirdness of the exit button makes me wonder: if there is a catastrophic electrical failure while you’re driving (not a fire; the whole car is dead)… how do you get out? Can you get out (without using the sunroof)?
I would like to think there would be some kind of backup mechanism, but I would also like to think there would be a backup camera so disappointment is probably imminent.
Yeah, I’ve heard too many horror stories about people getting trapped in cars with over-engineered exit mechanisms. Someone died, or nearly so, in his garage because the manual override was too well-hidden.