Look, I’ll be honest with you here: this post is not a good idea. Mercedes just wrote a more straightforward post about this thing already, the Grounded T1, a sort of e-bike-based RV, and we don’t really need two posts about this thing. But I can’t help myself. I can’t help myself because this thing is one of the stupidest fucking things I’ve seen in a long time, and it hurts too much to just keep that inside. I have to let it out, and, I apologize in advance, but I’m going to let it out here, right now. Let’s get it over with.
Okay, so, let’s just be absolutely clear about what we have here: this is an e-bike that’s pulling a small, narrow box. It’s a tiny, tiny home mounted on a four-wheel platform with a seat and some handlebars and a front wheel bolted to it. It’s electric powered, with a claimed range of 150 miles and a top speed of 15 mph. It can technically sleep two, but you’re only supposed to drive it with one, because I guess you can’t have anyone in the house part while it’s in (very slow) motion.
Here, looking at a picture gives a pretty good idea about this thing:
It definitely appears to be well-made, which just makes me angrier, because I know there are a lot of people who put a lot of good effort into this thing, a lot of hard work and talent and skill. And all of that is a damn shame, an absolute tragedy, because the fundamental idea behind this $30,000 machine is so deeply, irretrievably stupid.
Here’s my problem with this thing: who is it for? What are you supposed to do with this fucking thing? You’re not taking it off-road, at least nothing beyond a pretty mild trail that doesn’t have too many tree roots or especially robust mushrooms. You’re not taking it on the highway, because it only goes 15 mph. I guess you could drive it in the same places I drive my absurd little EV, my Changli, which can hit 20+ mph, if needed. And those places are pretty much in-town streets with a speed limit of 35 mph or less.
So, is that where you’re camping? Down the road from your house? Between where you live and that restaurant you like? Is this for going over to that bar or pub that’s just about walking distance from your house, but now you can crash in the parking lot when you get too drunk? If so, that’s the first practical use I’ve been able to think of for this inane pile.
Sure, it has a range of 150 miles, that’s not so bad. But you can only go 15 mph. And the driver’s seat is completely exposed to the elements out there. A beach chair on an outdoor deck has more protection than that bright green seat. So, that means if you were actually going to use this to go any distance – to go “adventuring,” as the company implies you can, you’ll be in that exposed seat for potentially up to ten hours, in the cold and rain or baking sun or whatever is going on outside.
Who the hell wants that? What’s the point of this thing? Again, who is this for?
Grounded’s website describes a target buyer for us:
“The bicycle-class light electric vehicle combines the cargo capacity of a van with the carbon footprint of an e-bike, enabling sustainability-focused adventurers to live and work comfortably in the outdoors with a minuscule footprint.”
Okay, so it’s for “sustainability-focused adventurers to live and work comfortably in the outdoors.” You know what? I’m calling big heaping forkfulls of bullshit on this one. Are these adventurers already in the outdoors? Just sitting there on a pile of leaves? Because that’s the only way this stupid heap is getting to the outdoors: if it gets delivered there. And it’s not getting them out of the outdoors, unless their idea of adventuring and outdoor living means doing it all within a short hop from a town, a hop that doesn’t require the use of highways or interstates.
This is, at best, like backyard camping. For $30-fucking-thousand dollars.
Look at this picture Grounded sent out:
Where is this? Is it on a parking deck? Because that’s the only place that looks anything like that where you can comfortably drive an overpriced toy that only goes 15 mph. It sure as hell isn’t on a real overpass on some highway, because taking this on the highway just proves you want to commit suicide in the most expensive and inconvenient way.
What about this promo picture up there? It looks like a screenshot from Myst or some shit. How did that trike-camper get there? Maybe it’s always there, condemned to circle that perfectly smooth ring of a road forever.
Is this part of that same smooth ring-road? Maybe. Probably. Because its only in fictional environments like these that this idiotic contraption makes any sense.
Ugh, this thing, this stupid fucking thing. It feels so cynical, so much the product of hubris from some tech-industry dipshits who are convinced any idea they have is a great one. It’s so frustrating because they almost have something good here, if they weren’t so inspired after seeing (as our own Thomas Hundal guessed) a Big Wheel parked next to a porta-potty.
There are so many baffling bad decisions here. Like, why not enclose the driver? How much harder would that have been? Look:
And the camper itself –it looks nicely made and elegantly designed and remarkably light – wouldn’t it have been vastly more useful if it was a pull-behind camper for small cars with minimal tow ratings?
Why couldn’t this have been something like that? A camper you could tow behind a Metro or Miata or Mirage or Mini or some other tiny car that may or may not start with “M?” That would actually be useful. You could actually take the damn thing places, places that you may need to use highways to get to, places that you may want to go to at speeds faster than that of an average dog.
And, as you go there, you won’t get rained on, and you can bring a friend!
Why is Grounded building this thing? Who is telling them this is a good idea? Maybe there are people with highly specific use cases for whom this makes some kind of sense? People who really want a Tiny Home but also need to, what, move it a couple times a week to avoid parking tickets? People who vomit if they go more than 16 mph?
I feel like the market for people who are into this sort of responsible, slow adventuring are already pretty well served by all the bike campers out there; things like these:
That’s 25 minutes of ultra-light, bike-camping options. They can actually go on park bike paths and trails, which usually don’t allow any motor-driven vehicles, even e-bikes. The Grounded T1 feels just too large and heavy for the sorts of places these bike campers go, while simultaneously being too minimal and slow for places fully motorized campers go.
It’s the worst of all the worlds!
It’s useless. It’s so stupid, it makes me angrified, because a company has gone through all of the effort to make this thing real. Of all the things that haven’t made it to production, this thing gets to? Why? Why?
Let’s even pretend it’s not $30,000 dollars. Let’s pretend I just gave you one of these. What are you going to do with it? Could you even take it anywhere that makes sense? Can you find some meandering path to a place worth camping out in? Will it take you days to get there? Are you just going to sleep on the shoulder of the road while you slowly crawl there? Are you going to just ask some random house if you can recharge from one of their outdoor outlets?
Or is this thing going to sit in the corner of your driveway until the heat death of the universe, though maybe occasionally you’ll crawl in it to have a snack or a wank to something that requires a special level of privacy.
Stupid, stupid, stupid. I’m happy to listen to defenses of this thing, and I’d love to be convinced that I’m wrong. Maybe there is a great use case for this dumb, heavy tricycle-with-a-shed. If so, I’d love to hear it.
But, so far, I’m just annoyed this idiotic thing is on its way to existing.
You know what else has the capacity of a van for $30k?
A van.
These will prove to be very popular on Mackinac Island.
Maybe.
Funny, I actually thought of that instantly – a real-life town that has no cars to hit you and enough nature to explore and park in. But camping is illegal. Sure, you can theoretically sneak in a tent in a backpack, hike to the middle of the woods or around the back side of the bike trail and wait until sundown to pitch your tent, then pack up before sunrise… but this is not that.
I could ALMOST see something like this being an approved rental on the island like their bikes. It would be a fun thing to park along the shore for a relaxing day, assuming you don’t go during mayfly season. But it would have to come with the caveat that you need to return them by the last ferry leaves for the day or else… I guess the one police car on the island would come after you. Seems like more trouble that it would be worth.
I’d rather buy an old Econoline cargo van off of FB marketplace and a blow up mattress and just pocket the rest of the cash