Wenn der als L7e kommt..... (Mobilize Duo)

Ich finde den schon klasse und zieh den Hut mal wieder vor Renault (das letzte mal 2012).
Trotzdem werde ich immer mehr in meiner Überzeugung gestärkt, ich bleib den Twiyzerl treu.

Sherlock schrieb: Das Ganze erinnert eher an ein kleines Auto, als es beim Twizy der Fall ist.
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DAS könnte für die Verkaufszahlen sehr sehr gut sein und es ist ein Grund warum ich mir keinen kaufe. Der zweite ist, daß man die Scheiben nicht ganz rausnehmen kann und der Dritte, daß er nicht in die Molly passt.

Von der Optik her ist der Mobilize Duo leider zu "normal" und passt deswegen nicht in meinen Fuhrpark, auch wenn er mir optisch ganz gut gefällt. Es ist erstaunlich, wie viele Daumenhochs man mit dem Twizy noch bei jeder Fahrt bekommt, besonders, wenn man mit Anzug und Krawatte damit unterwegs ist. Auf der A3 werde ich auch häufig gefilmt und fotografiert (von Zivilisten). Mit dem Twizy komme ich genau durch die Poller am Flughafen, kann ihn zu den wild parkenden Motorrädern stellen und viel Fußweg zum Mitarbeiterparkhaus sparen. Ein breiteres Fahrzeug würde nicht passen.

Goldbacher schrieb: Von der Optik her ist der Mobilize Duo leider zu "normal" und passt deswegen nicht in meinen Fuhrpark, auch wenn er mir optisch ganz gut gefällt. Es ist erstaunlich, wie viele Daumenhochs man mit dem Twizy noch bei jeder Fahrt bekommt, besonders, wenn man mit Anzug und Krawatte damit unterwegs ist. Auf der A3 werde ich auch häufig gefilmt und fotografiert (von Zivilisten). Mit dem Twizy komme ich genau durch die Poller am Flughafen, kann ihn zu den wild parkenden Motorrädern stellen und viel Fußweg zum Mitarbeiterparkhaus sparen. Ein breiteres Fahrzeug würde nicht passen.

Der "Neue" ist halt was der Twizy nie sein sollte. Ein "kleines Auto"

Die 6cm mehr Breite sollten (außer man will ihn in einen Transporter laden wo dann 3 cm fehlen) eher nicht wirklich ins Gewicht fallen.

Der "Welpenschutz" bei Parkzetteln etc. den der Twizy hat wird der Mobilize wegen Design/Gefühl "kleines Auto" nicht bekommen.

This afternoon I could drive a Duo (80 km/h) for almost two hours, and here are the things I noticed.

To understand my perspective: for the last 12+ years our main family cars have been Priuses, currently a 2013 plugin Prius. I've had my 2020 Twizy for almost a year now, for the past few months I've averaged 1000 km per month. So, I'm still a fairly new Twizy driver, but I have already some kilometers under my belt

These are the things I noticed and wrote down during and after my test drive:

• Looks. That has to be personal, but I like it. I wouldn't mind being seen in one. It's less cute than the Twizy, for sure, but I still like it. All exterior lighting appears to be LED, which gives the vehicle a modern look.
• Stickers. On the one hand, I wonder how they'll age and how cleanly they'll come off when you want them to. I wonder how much they'll cost from Mobilize, and I wonder how long it'll be before someone publishes a DXF file that you can use to design your own and send to a sticker maker of your choice. Overall, I like the choice of stickers, it adds options. If you can have them made cheap enough, you could do fun temporary stuff like when your country plays football in a European/World championship.
• The brightly coloured dashboard. I could have done without that. It's not a sticker (I think), so you're stuck with that unless you want to mess about with paint.
• Doors. This is one of the areas where the Duo is most different from the Twizy. First of all, they're standard , they come with windows installed that are actually made of glass. When you open and close them, they feel solid enough. Opening, closing and locking the windows both up and down feels solid. The glass side windows provide a better view than my plastic Korea windows. Opening the doors with an (electronic) button works fine, but I would have preferred mechanics. A thing that is totally different from the Twizy: you can't take out the windows. Today was a pretty warm day, and my Duo had no air conditioning. With both windows open there was some airflow whilst driving, but not as much as with a Twizy without windows. The door openings have a thick rubber seal all around the edge, and the doors seal well against it. Judging by this, the Duo should be much, much more weather proof than the Twizy.
• Heater. It has one! Awesome. Too bad that on my Duo it didn't work. Don't know why, but I can't say how effective it is. Testing it wouldn't have been fun on this hot day anyway.
• Heated seat. Works! Wasn't pleasant on a hot day, but probably nice on a cold day. I wouldn't have minded a heated steering wheel, though.
• Air conditioning. This is a € 1000 option. When I first saw that, I though "who in their right mind would buy that on a vehicle like this". Having now driven one on a hot day, and having experienced the limited air flow through the small opening windows, I now think that getting one might not be such a bad idea if you live somewhere where you have actual summers. I will have to find out if the A/C has an inverter, and can thus be used as a heater. If that is not the case, then that is a missed opportunity for extra efficiency. I'm afraid, even an A/C-equipped Duo will use a simple resistance heater, which will probably suck up range.
• Windshield wiper stalk. This has a momentary "up" switch, for one wipe. After having tested this in the Duo maybe three times, I immediately missed it in my Twizy. Such a small thing, but I noticed it immediately.
• Regenerative braking. As we all know, the Twizy's regen braking is anemic. The Duo's is much better. Still no single pedal driving unless no one's behind you, but definitely an improvement.
• Brake rub. Brake rub appears to be a fact of life with a Twizy. I was surprised that my Duo had at least as much brake rub as my Twizy.
• Suspension: The Twizy's suspension is notoriously harsh. The Duo's suspension is much friendlier. Going over speed bumbs a little too fast it punished with lower back pain, as it is in the Twizy.
• Road handling: I'm absolutely no car expert (I drive a Prius...) but road handling appears to be good. Steering is direct, it goes where you point it. Suspension a little softer than the Twizy, but still harder than most full-sized cars. Weaving around roundabouts at higher-than-advisable speed is still fun
• Parking brake. The parking brake is of the classic variety that you'd find in almost any car before they became electronic. It works well, it feels much more solid than the Twizy's hand brake, and if it only works on the rear wheels you should be able to have some good old fashioned slipping fun in the snow. Its placement on the floor, to the right of the foot well, makes getting in to and out of the Duo a bit tricky on the right hand side.
• Charge cable flap. First a negative: it has the exact same flap open/close switch that post-2016 Twizy's have. Mine gave me a lot of grief (moisture...) until I disconnected it. This should be just as bad. On the plus side: the space, under the flap, where the charging cable is stored is large enough to also store your Mennekes adapter. However, even this is not completely positive as you might have to (see the point about storage), and the flap cannot be locked.
• Interior space. The interior space in the horizontal direction is not bad. Maybe there's a little more elbow room for the driver, but it seems pretty much the same as in the Twizy. Which is fine. Same probably goes for the passenger. However, headroom is bad. I'm 1m85, and most of my length is in my upper body. In my Twizy I have about 4-5 cm of headroom when I'm in the driver's seat. I can fully stretch my back and not touch the roof. In the Duo, when I'm sitting normally (not stretching, not slumping) I can feel what little hair I have left touch the ceiling. This is disappointing.
• Frame visible. I was surprised to see that you can see the car's metal frame everywhere in the interior. It's painted black, so not a huge issue, but it looks.... hastily designed? Cheap?
• Mirrors. They are not bad, they extend farther out from the vehicle, but are smaller than with the Twizy. They can be folded in (manually) when parked.
• Acceleration. Acceleration seems to work a little different from the Twizy. In a (non-tuned) Twizy, when you floor the accelerator, power/torque are initially limited until you reach maybe 10 km/h, and then you get progressively more power until maximum acceleration is reached. With the Duo, it seems the other way around: when you floor the accelerator, the vehicles "jumps" away but then seems to "hold back", until full acceleration returns. Someone who knows more about cars then me should test and measure this, I'm probably not describing it very well. Overall, 0-50 in the Duo is probably comparable to the Twizy.
• Driving noise. The Twizy is a noisy beast, and the the Duo is mostly much better. Especially under 50 km/h, the noise level in the interior is maybe comparable to a cheap M1 car (Aygo/Up/etc). You can probably keep up a conversation with your passenger without raising your voice. Over about 50 km/h, it does get noisier, but it's of a different nature than in the Twizy. The Twizy's transmission can really "scream" at higher speeds. While the Duo transmission certainly becomes audible at higher speeds, it's much more subdued. Once you reach 80 km/h, I'd say it's not much quieter than the Twizy, but the nature of the sound is a little bit less unpleasant.
• Dashboard. Besides the bright colouring that I don't like, there's not much wrong with the dashboard. On the left hand side there are large physical buttons (yay physical buttons!) for the basic functions, the display displays the things you'd expect, and other than that there's not much to say about it. The phone holder on the right hand might be fine if you only use your phone occasionally during driving (as you should), but if you use satellite navigation (which I always use) I don't like the placement. You need to look away from the road to see the map. I brought my suction cup holder, and placed it on the wind shield, where it is in my field of view. I did not test charging the phone from the car's USB-C connector, and I also did not connect to the car's bluetooth.
• Turning circle. Someone should measure this, but it felt like it is comparable to that of the Twizy.
• OBD2 connection. I brought my OBD2/bluetooth adapter, because I wanted to see if the Torque app could talke to the Duo's ECU (this doesn't work in the Twizy). I couldn't locate the Duo's OBD2 connector. I'm guessing you need to remove a panel somewhere, but maybe I overlooked it. In any case, I couldn't test if the Duo speaks normal OBD2.
• And then the elephant in the room: storage. Compared to other L7e vehicles like the XEV Yoyo and the Microlio, the Twizy doesn't have much storage space. Want to buy groceries? Your passenger is walking home if you're driving a Twizy. But at least the Twizy has its two glove compartments, and the small storage compartment behind the passenger seat. The Duo has.... drum roll... absolutely nothing. No glove box, no other storage compartments anywhere. I see this as a large negative. In the Twizy, I store my Mennekes adapter in the lockable glove box. In the Duo, my only option would be to store in the (unlockable) charge cable storage compartment. Not good, Mobilize!
• And the other elephant in the room: rust. This Duo had as least as much rust on its suspension as the static model I saw last week. This better not be the norm. That is actually disappointing, so far.

Besides the points above, lots of stuff I couldn't test: range, charging, motorway, bringing a passenger, etc. I tried to peel off a plastic wheel cover, but I was afraid I'd break it. During the summer vacation, in the sauregurkenzeit, I think I'll try to borrow or rent the Duo for a week or so. In my experience, you can't judge a vehicle in anything less than a week. I will need to organise a drag race between a Twizy and a Duo then, for sure

My overall provisional conclusion is: clearly, the Duo is a much more recent design than the Twizy. Larger battery, more range, much more refined drive train. Solid doors, with glass windows, good weather proofing. Style-wise, some Twizy echoes clearly present, but much more its own thing. More "car" than the Twizy, which for sales is probably a good thing. Heating! Air conditioning! Amazing concepts for Twizy drivers. Not without bad points, though: rust apparently standard from the factory and no storage space at all.

I have photos, and some video, but it's late now. I'll try to post these tomorrow. If you have any questions, let me know, maybe I have forgotten some things.

higher-than-advisable speed is still fun

YMMD!

The rust "problem"... remains, imho. This is quite normal for cast iron parts that undergo some milling or other mechanical treatment after painting. And also imho , the black paint doesn't last long either, since it's usually just sprayed onto the bare iron without any thorough surface treatment before.
The Twizy wheel carrier is made of Aluminium, the Duo has a castiron one.

Here are the two videos I made:

A couple of minutes of driving:



Opening and closing the door: