\u201cWow, what an entrance!\u201d said a well-coiffed woman as other patrons seated at the sidewalk cafe, now standing, began to applaud my exit from the electric bubble car like I was stepping out of a limousine.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
That really happened in one of Amsterdam\u2019s wealthiest neighborhoods, on a street dotted with Range Rovers and a G-Class Merc costing nearly ten times as much as the little\u00a0BMW Isetta<\/a>\u00a0throwback I was driving. What followed was a bevy of questions I had already answered dozens of times in my one week with the car: What is it? How much does it cost? Can I drive it on the highway?<\/p>\n<\/div>\n It\u2019s an Italian-made Microlino<\/a> from a Swiss-company called Micro with prices starting at around \u20ac18,000 (about $19,500). Yes, it\u2019s highway legal.\u00a0<\/p>\n<\/div>\n While cars in general are embiggening, in some cities a new breed of electric microcars are trending. They\u2019re cheaper to own, easier to park, consume less public space and energy, and maneuver around obstacles that would otherwise block big SUVs and snarl traffic.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n And you know what? Some, like the Microlino, are so much fun that maybe, just maybe, they\u2019ll help reverse the trend of people buying increasingly larger and heavier cars. Assuming they\u2019ve fixed a software issue that bricked my test car at the end of the review (more on that later).<\/p>\n<\/div>\n Let me start by saying that I don\u2019t own a car, but I do regularly drive one. I\u2019ve\u00a0long subscribed to a car sharing service<\/a>\u00a0with a dedicated fleet parked in dedicated spots around town, that lets me select the right car for my current need: compact, wagon, or panel van; gas or EV. But not everyone lives in a city that spent the last 50-odd years trying to\u00a0break away from car dependency<\/a>\u00a0to perfect multimodal transport, so the desire to own a large car that can do\u00a0all<\/em>\u00a0the car things is understandable.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n Yet even here in Amsterdam \u2014 a city dominated by bicycles with easy access to good public transportation \u2014 there are still lots of privately owned cars suffering from autobesity, just sitting there on the street\u00a0unused 96 percent of the time<\/a>, by some accounts. That\u2019s space that could be used for public walkways, cycleways, benches, cafes, greenery… or about three microcars parked side by side.\u00a0<\/p>\n<\/div>\n The midtier Microlino Dolce I reviewed starts at \u20ac20,000 (about $21,700) and is an absolute joy for quick trips to the market or dropping a kid at school while staying warm and dry in bad weather. It has a top speed of 90km\/h (55mph) and range of up to 228km (142 miles) for destinations well beyond the city center.\u00a0<\/p>\n<\/div>\n Last weekend, I drove my wife and dog to the sea and back and then returned to the dunes for a trail run the following day before needing to recharge the Microlino, for a real-world range of about 110km. I plugged it in at one of the 12 public 11kW AC chargers in the parking lot with about 20 percent remaining, and returned from my run 90 minutes later to find a 50 percent charge \u2014 more than enough for the 30-minute drive home.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n The Microlino\u2019s no speed demon, but it\u2019s still an EV and so lightweight that I\u2019d beat unsuspecting taxis off the starting line and \u201cwin\u201d the merged lane. The small and responsive steering wheel and super stiff suspension contribute to a go-kart feel when whipping around corners and through traffic circles at I-should-know-better speeds. \u201cIt feels like a real car,\u201d is how one owner of a\u00a0\u20ac15,000 (about $16,300) Biro<\/a>\u00a0\u2014 one of the first and most popular electric microcars to seduce Amsterdammers \u2014 described driving the Microlino.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n It\u2019s not without its faults, however. To start with, there\u2019s a lot of plastic inside the Microlino (but the windows are all glass unlike some microcars). One plastic clip helping to keep a plastic service panel in place snapped off in my brief time with the car, which I received with just 10km on the odometer. The motor has a distinct whine, the phone holder rattles when empty, the wiper motor is noisy, and the fan has two settings: loud or louder.\u00a0The only thing that isn\u2019t loud is the included portable Bluetooth speaker.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n