Petivilleauto

Petivilleauto or a Kem Car for outside of the Federation is the smallest category of Côtois road legal (but not expressway-legal) motor vehicles. The automobiles are designed around traveling and/or hauling in urbanized regions with narrow streets in the Federation of the Southern Coast of Lapérouse in short range. It was originally first sold in 1949 by Coopérative automobile de l'Est, and was purely designed with Kemonomimi sizes in mind containing several features designed around them. Examples being tail friendly interiors such as the chairs having a open square space in them for tails to fit through comfortably and built in safety features for door closes to not accidently trap the tail. Car ceilings being disproportional higher so ears are not pushed up against it. Anti-static fabrics based used in the interiors for the furs in ears and tails. Petivilleauto, regardless of the type of automobile are always much shorter on average compared to other vehicles with the largest of the class and sometimes classified as city cars or as mini-cars. Engines in theses cars save the largest of the class is only ever top speed at 72 km/h (45 mp/h) but the only lasts a two minutes until the governor slows the car back down. The petivilleauto as a general rule of the Côtois motors industry is designed to go on average 40 km/h (25 mp/h) but able to maintain 55 km/h (35 mp/h) if need be.

The ban on having them on expressways (Highways) was primary driven by citizens within the country wanting to ban automobiles that are believed to be 'too slow' for highways rather than genuine safety concerns. Côtois voters pushed forward with the ban originally in a per petite-national basis until it reached to the federal parliament, where the ban was signed into law in 1955. The ban does allow for vehicles classified as petivilleauto to enter and leave highways but only for a period of less than 45 minutes. The ban resulted in several petite-nations to begin to establish specialized lanes for petivilleauto for highways, similar to bus lanes or bike lanes.

Petivilleauto vehicles within the Federation have been considerably successful, being one-forth of domestic new-car sales in 2016 and currently the only vehicle class that been considered by automobile industry experts that completely shifted to using hybrid engines or electric, instead of purely using gasoline engines. Though experts cite that the petivilleauto vehicles is a extremely niche market, making it far easier for the class to make the change to hybrid engines. In a 2020 survey in République C.D, of the 10,000 petivilleauto drivers that gave a response cite that 55% use hybrid engines, 40% use fully electric, 4% use gasoline and 1% use different type of engine not marked on the questionnaire.

Exports wise, Kem Cars was formally seen as too niche market and specialized to be profitable. Yet in the 2000s Petivilleauto class grew in popularity in East Borea among the low-wage earners, particularly with the Akuan population and is frequently sight driving in Blaskovian cities as well in Nystapi urban centers. In Dvergerland both before and after independence, Kem cars (in particularly the trucks) was a common vehicle of choice for dwarves as it didn't require modification for their size. Petivilleauto are rapidly becoming a growing export for East Borea in general as living standards and wages increase in Nystatiszna, meanwhile in Dvergerland it is the dominant car class on the market. Kemonomimi majority nations in the Red Crown Economic Union, have expressed interest in importing more of the niche cars due to the affordability of them. The resulting niche exports the automobile industry in the Federation have modified Kem cars to drive at a faster speed and maintain it, particular highly requested modification by the Dvergian's government.

While humans technically can fit inside of petivilleauto, common complaints describe issues of being to small to be comfortable and the seats being not suitable for human frames. The compact nature of Kem cars, generally result in species who are on average bigger than Kemonomimi are generally advised by the automobile industry not to purchase a petivilleauto types of vehicles out of safety concerns and lack of comfortability. Petivilleauto virtually have all been designed and manufactured within the Federation without exception.

History

First Era (1949 - 1967)

The Petivilleauto originates are from FPM Léonce Fontaine suggestion during a cabinet meeting in 1937 about creating affordable cars for urbanites in order to increase consumption spending among the urbanized industrial class, in particular the machinery designers and engineers. As well stimulating the growing automobile industry, and provide small firms with delivery vehicles. The first of theses cars to be built was by the now defunct Coopérative automobile de l'Est, and as the Federation was still 89% kemonomimi at the time. Was purely designed with kemonomimi in mind.

The class at first was barebones in design and having a manual transmission. The slow speeds of the vehicles and small designs, was not only due to the speed limit laws of the various cities of the Federation but due to the narrow roads from many of the older cities. The cars could fit the basic needs of transportation as a alternative to public transport. While public transport in the Federation has always been heavy focus of the country to a near-religious zealotry level, families and pensioners wanted to be able to travel without the need of a fixed schedule. The result of Fontaine suggestion during the cabinet meeting pushed the ideal of having a urbanite car into the mainstream.

Marking the end of the first era was in 1965, as more automobile industries started to focus on increasing the sophistication and comfort of the Kem Cars. While safety features always has a key part of Kem cars, the automobile industry began to focus on improving the Kem cars to be less barebones aside from the safety features. Adding in features that are common in other cars, such as radios and making the transmission automatic. In addition to the increasing of features, Kem cars started to become more specialized with Kem Car food trucks, Kem-Vans and other such specializations.

Gyllir Era (1967 - 1990)

The Gyllir Era was a massive change for Kem Car class for three reasons: Côtois parliament passing a law that makes personal automobiles considered to be a luxury products, therefore completely legal to have capitalistic firms produce them as outline in the Federal constitution, which resulted in the founding of Gyllir Motor Corporation which in itself utterly changed the automobile industry. Second was the Gothic Revolution, and the social impact of the growing Hjørdist population changed to public view of what was considered to be a socially acceptable luxury to own. Third was a growing small cooperative and small firms in urban areas needing their own low-cost business vehicles.

The Gyllir Era's petivilleauto marked the beginning of wide spread adoption in urban cities of the country. Where perviously Kem Cars was generally own seen in petite-nations capitals. Kem cars became generally affordable to families as a general, rather than being for small business firms and specialized workers like engineers or doctors. While Kem cars never reached the same status as the Gyllir Worker by any margin. As the Worker was, and still is the most commonly first-purchase car for new car owners. However Kem cars was still bought by families as their second vehicles, due to the affordability of it and incases where the first car is in use.

Export Era (1990s - 2016)

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Legality in World

Tavari Union

Kem cars are not uncommon in the Tavari Union, where they are almost entirely linked to the politically and socially controversial institution of child labour. In some cases children as young as 12 can be employed in the Tavari Union, though the absolute minimum driving age is 14. In the Tavari-speaking world, orcs are the majority species, and while adult orcs are almost universally too large to comfortably fit inside a Kem car, orcish children often can fit in them. With their small size, limited speed, low cost, and high level of engineering focus on safety features, Kem cars became popular for use by children for work-related transportation needs because, unlike something such as a golf cart, a Kem car can be legally driven on city streets. Kem cars are used, for example, by children who are street vendors to bring their cart or equipment into town for the day, or by children who are employed as domestic workers at a home that is not served by public transportation. They are also used for transport just within a single work site or property, where a driver's license would not be required anyway.

In Tavaris, the driving age is 16 in most circumstances but those aged 14 or older can apply for a permit with their provincial government to drive on a pre-registered, approved route to and from work or school, with deviation from that route disallowed. The other countries descended from Tavaris have largely inherited this same system. These special permits are not always approved, with authorities generally disinclined to grant approval unless there are no alternative options such as bus service or public transport available for the individual child. This stems from older laws permitting children who live in rural communities to drive tractors to and from school in the absence of school bus service. Kem cars, while not designed for rural use, do see use in rural parts of Tavaris, but are actually most common in suburban areas that have developed street networks but fewer public transport options. They are most popular in the northeastern provinces of Enaro Tavar and Lansai, the southern province of Motai, and the western province of Odai in Tavaris; they are exceptionally popular in the Avtovati Isles and Metrati Anar where public transport is the least developed and the labour force is smallest. Kem cars were once popular in Acronis, but in 2023, Acronis changed the minimum working age to 16, thus eliminating nearly the entire market for the vehicles in the country.

As in the Federation, Kem cars are prohibited on expressways in the Tavari Union. In Tavaris, they are also generally prohibited from crossing provincial boundaries. Kem cars are issued special number plates that immediately identify them as unlawful to drive on expressways, and they are required to be outfitted with reflectors and caution signs.

Dvergerland

Kem Cars are the de-facto vehicle of choice for Dvergerland due to the size of the cars and the affordability of them. In Dvergerland, dwarves are majority species and majority vehicles produced in the world either require heavy modification or being custom made all together. However Kem Cars only required modification is to change the governor and other minor modifications to make the vehicles worthy for rural areas. The result how of common of the modifications, various Côtois automobile manufacturers have responded to these changes by making making the changes themselves at the factory purely for Dvergerland exports.