It isn’t a car, and it isn’t a moped on four wheels. Still, it can reach a top speed of 90 km/hour, and you need a driver’s license B for it in Belgium. Officially, it is a fully electric lightweight quadricycle (L7e) that looks like the direct reincarnation of the ultimate bubble car of the fifties, the BMW-built Isetta. Taking its Swiss-Italian successor for a week-long test drive was certainly an adventure.

Expect a lot of smiles while cruising through the city as this beautifully designed egg on wheels surely is an eyecatcher, and the LED strip spanning the whole front door makes the Microline smile itself. But prepare to give up some of the comforts you take for granted in a modern car. You can’t have it all for a – still spicy – price of  €17,990 to €19,990, which can drop as low as €12,990 if you’re lucky.

In this case, being lucky means being eligible for an EV premium like in Flanders (Belgium), where the government just cut the knot to grant private buyers of a new EV a €5,000 premium. On the condition that you’re living in the Dutch-speaking region of the country, and if ordered this year, 2024, And yes, the Microlino qualifies.

The Microlino was invented by the Swiss company Micro Mobility and the family behind the Micro Kickscooter, Wim, Oliver, and Merlin Ouboter. It all started with a simple question, the Ouboters say: “How much car do you really need for your daily commute?”

Coming from a completely different sector, they could not understand why most cars today are too big and heavy for their purpose. On average, a vehicle is occupied by just one or two people, traveling a daily distance of only 30 km. But what would the ideal car for urban mobility look like?

Design and technical specifications were worked out with help from the Swiss university ZHAW; a prototype was developed in China in mid-2015 to present at the Geneva Motor Show in 2016. But it took some time to start building it in mass finally.

Micro Mobility Systems started production of its Microlino last June 2023 at its Italian factory in Turin. A factory set up as Microlino Italia, a company established as a partnership between Micro and CECOMP, an Italian industrial group specializing in building prototypes, among others.

Microlino is compact to the extreme, yet it sits two adults quite comfortably, though close together, on a double bench that slides on rails to adjust the driver’s position behind the small go-cart-like sports wheel.

Getting in it is a puzzle as there are no visible side doors, and for those who have never seen the original Isetta and don’t know the concept, there is no visual clue how to get in. The whole front of the car is a door, but you have to unlock it with the key fob first and then find the button under the right mirror to have it swing open automatically.

When open, the Microlino generously invites you in. Getting seated for the first time might need some practicing, and it won’t be a walk in the park for older people among us. And be aware to do it quickly when it is raining, as you risk soaking the whole interior with this wide open mouth.

It feels pretty cozy once seated and after pulling the door shut with the leather strap on the door. In this Pioneer version, there is even a (manually) sliding roof standard when the weather allows it.

Behind you is a remarkable spacy trunk with a volume of 230 liters. There is ample room for two big shopping bags and a couple of six-packs. To open the trunk lid, you have the key fob, as there is no physical button on the outside, or you can use the small touch screen in the interior. As the key fob opening didn’t work in our case, we had no other option.

Once seated behind the steering wheel, you have this big windshield with one wiper for rainy days in front of you, two pedals, on the left a rotary selector knob for drive, neutral, and reverse, and a small instrument cluster screen. That gives you information about speed, a visual idea of how much energy you use to accelerate or recuperate when braking, and a percentage of your battery’s health.

There is no ‘range indicator,’ so you’ll have to determine yourself how far you will get. That was a challenge right from the start, as we had to do at least 82 km back home to Genk from the D’Ieteren center in Kortenberg. In winter, at 6°C…

The Pioneer series we were driving had a medium-range 10.5 kWh battery. That should guarantee a 177 km maximum range according to European standards for the World Motorcycle Test Cycle (WMTC). In practice, that would be 108 km at best on cold winter days or 144 km on a sunny summer day.

That made us bite our nails initially, but ultimately, we did it, taking secondary roads (although allowed legally on highways) and keeping it at the speed limit of mostly 70 km/hour with 18% electricity left in the battery on arrival.

Consuming 10,36 kWh/100 km

That’s somewhat 2 kWh left, meaning we consumed 10,36 kWh per 100 km on actual Belgian road conditions, while Microlino advertises 10.5 kWh. That’s not bad, considering ‘real’ EVs generally consume between 13 to 20 kWh on average today. But this one only weighs 513 kg, and ‘real’ EVs tend to be two tons or more.

As this is a vehicle meant for city commuting and trips around the village church tower, and the 80 to 100 km drive we did is rather exceptional, this is more than enough. You can charge it up to 2.6 kW at home in three to four hours.

But if range anxiety is your thing and extra money is no issue, there is a version with a 14 kWh battery for a theoretical range of 230 km, 184 km in real-life conditions in summer, and 138 km in winter. The basic version, called ‘Urban’, comes with a 6 kWh battery. That should be enough for a 72 km actual range in daily city use in summer and 54 km in winter.

Driving is child’s play

Driving it is child’s play, but you must put your foot on the brake and lose it to switch between neutral, drive, and reverse. Don’t forget the manual hand brake on the left side of the seat, as you won’t get far without releasing it.

Once started, you’ll notice that the sometimes screaming sound of the electric drive is always there, and there is not much space for sound isolation in the aluminum self-supporting body of the Microlino.

That stiff body and steel-reinforced front door are a safety plus compared to other quadricycles, mostly built around a tubular frame. Speaking of safety, you’ll have seat belts as usual, but no airbags (yet) as not legally required.

Flabbergasted fellow road users

This Microlino is quite fast, with its 12.5 kW (16 hp) electromotor, accelerating from 0-50 km/hour in five seconds, and it even has a ‘Sport’ setting. That surprises most fellow road users, who often think they’re dealing with a common microcar limited to 45 km/hour. So they’ll do anything to overtake you and be flabbergasted. This ‘thing’ can actually do 90 km/hour and accelerates faster than their car. Be aware.

But before you get too excited, there is a ‘but’ too. In this case, it even can be a painful ‘butt’. The Microlino, with its tiny wheels, has independent suspension on those four wheels. But you’ll feel every pothole in the road in your bottom and spine as the hard-shell seat sits quite hard with just a thin suede or vegan-leather covering. On rough concrete roads or Belgian cobblestones, you’ll notice!

Steering is quite direct and can be heavy when parking, as no power steering is available. You might wonder whether this ‘egg on wheels’ is stable when cornering, but that actually turns out to be relatively safe, as the battery’s weight and the vehicle’s low gravity point keep it well on the road.

There definitely is a comfort penalty, as this Microlino has no air conditioning, and the (electric) heater can only be switched on or off, with no adjustment in between. So in winter, it’s too cold or way too hot, or you’ll be switching on and off constantly.

A small touchscreen in the middle lets you activate the heater, the blower with three levels for ventilation, or the rear window defroster. And boy, you’ll hear when that ventilation is working. It’s pretty noisy, and there is no radio to mask it with music.

In this Pioneer version, there is an integrated, portable Bluetooth speaker that can be plugged into one of the three possible USB charging ports available and is to be used to play the music on your smartphone, which can sit conveniently in a dashboard holder.

Now is the time to jump

So, to come to the baseline, how much of a real car do you really need? After a week of using it in regular daily conditions, in the ‘suburbs’ of Genk city for shopping trips and occasionally round trips of a maximum of 40 km in the region, the Microlino proved to be a real option and a pleasure to drive. And you certainly get noticed.

Without the ‘help’ of a 5,000 euro EV premium, it is quite an expensive toy for those who want it as a second car. But if you’re one of those who don’t like oversized SUVs with just one person in it, claiming double public space, but you prefer practical urban mobility and a minimal ecological footprint matters to you, now is the time to jump.

It’s one of the most affordable electric ‘cars’ you can get today. Especially when living in Flanders, if you bite the bullet before December 31, 2024.