Lots of Americans in the comments is probably why, plus the Hacker News tendency toward armchair expertise.
The American grid system tends to produce hills that are unmanageable on a town or cargo bike, so bicycles are a fitness/enthusiast thing. And US cities are much more spread out, too. In more walkable European cities, these bikes make a lot of sense.
There is much to criticise but there is so much to like. The sprawl of US cities was not a problem for me, it was a lot easier and less stressful on US roads than what we get in the UK. The shoulders on most US roads are defacto cycle lanes, which I really liked since a good speed could be maintained.
As a British observer, I can't help but laugh at how everything in the US is bigger. I do my grocery shopping by bicycle and I am the only person in the supermarket carrying 30kgs of stuff up a very steep hill. Everyone else drives. My bike is a normal one, but I feel that, if I was American, then I would be compelled to have some special needs bike, either a cargo bike or electric, to 'haul' even more stuff.
Everything just has to be bigger!!!
The book of excuses for not cycling is massive in America, but, I have never been to a better place for utility cycling. The whole place is really well set up for utility cycling, you just have to see it that way.
Fitness cycling is a high status pursuit, much like those silly games like tennis that were invented just to show how high status you are. Golf is the classic, so much arable land not under the plough is a true flex of wealth.
Fitness cycling shows that you are not working class, that you have the resources to not work. Utility cycling is low status, it shows you can't afford a car or you have been banned.
With utility cycling there is always a reason for the ride, it is not out of choice, if you don't do the ride, there will be consequences such as not having a job or having no food in. Yet there was a time before the car when all cycling was for utility reasons.
Now what "unmanageable" means can differ quite a lot by person. Like some people would call some of the streets in Lisbon "unmanageable" by walking ;)
But then in both cases it only affects part of the city and throw in a E-Bike and thinks are often quite fine.
Anyway the point is, the bike from the article seems quite far away from a general purpose cargo bike. But for places where it fit its niche it probably shines.
Right now, there is only one multi-geared commercially available unicycle hub, and it only has 2 gears, and costs $1500 (Schlumpf drive). As for ebike motors that can be coaxial with pedals, as far as I know 2 have ever been made, by myself and by Justin @ ebikes.ca.
The entire unicycle community would be thrilled if they actually built this because then we could buy these hubs. But I would be very surprised to see this launch with a unique hub, instead of a cruzbike-like hub.
The Kwiggle folding bike in Germany[1] took over manufacturing of the Schlumpf drive in 2023[2] and uses it for their 6-speed option. It's in the bottom bracket and shifts by hitting the axle left/right with the heels. (costs ~€2000 and surely the front gear is not three quarters of that?).
[1] https://www.kwigglebike.com/en_US/
[2] https://www.drive-mobility.com/en "We, KwiggleBike GmbH, have been managing the business of Haberstock Mobility GmbH since 01.04.2024. We have been manufacturing all Schlumpfdrives since mid-2023"
I'm sure it doesn't cost $1500 to produce, that's just the cost to consumers. My point wasn't that it's ridiculously expensive (which it is), but that this seems like a really high hurdle to produce the cyclauto; no other company is currently producing the unicycle version, and even if they can manufacture them for, say $500, that's still astronomical compared to if they used the cruzbike model.
This thing is not for Le Tour and you don't go fast on it and you don't go up giant hills on it. That makes a lot of the concerns here go out the window.
These types of bikes shaped objects often have all kinds of issues with trying to use bike parts designed for standard bikes on something that is very different. Issues with needing enormous chains, huge cable runs, etc.. when designers try things like this they are worrying about issues like that more than whether you can climb a mountain on it or stuff it into a corner at high speed without going out of control.
The thing with these is the cost to design & manufacture components that need to be different than normal bikes can be astronomical, so anything they can do to design the frame to use normal components in a normal/non-compromised way pays off in a huge way.
The ideas behind this aren't that different than the Cruzbike being front wheel drive to get rid of a lot of the component/drivetrain issues that recumbent bikes are famous for.