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Originally Posted by ctgottapee
Producing a car with tandem seating strays too far from the basic car nomenclature.
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Once again, that's the idea.
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The offset seating is a great compromise, and most single travelers take advantage of the spare seat as storage; much less convenient in a tandem array.
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With the provision of rear seat passenger leg room either side of a driver, there's space for storage.
Why?
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Tandem sacrifices drive-ability, especially with a passenger as any motorcyclist will know.
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How? Particularly in a very light vehicle, the weight distribution is less affected than it is with side by side seating.
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If the wheels have to be wide, might as well put the seats wide anyhow.
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Except that there are advantages in putting the driver close to the centreline of the car, regardless of where the wheels are.
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Many others have tried to produce a tandem or single seat vehicle and have all failed so clearly there is not a viable market. In the end its basically just a covered motorcycle...
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Yes, there are marketing reasons why a tandem seat arrangement might be seen as less desirable. Very large (fat) people won't fit in the passenger seat, and women won't like not being able to wear a skirt with dignity intact but they're not engineering reasons.
The Light Car Company Rocket was successful, at least for what it is.
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Originally Posted by NeilBlanchard
Where would the battery pack be in a tandem seat design? To keep the height the same as the XL1, a tandem design would need to be quite long. The side taper would have to be reduced because you still have to fit the wheels and the passenger and the drivetrain.
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Take another look at the original "One-Liter" prototype. It's not particularly tall nor long, has low aerodynamic drag and does have a battery in there (somewhere).
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Another "compromise" of tandem seating is that the people can't see the other person's face.
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Valid criticism. Is it any worse than offset side by side seating though?