Stackable Concept Car
If it works for shopping carts, it should work for parking, right? MIT's Smart Cities team is considering this very notion, creating a concept car that stacks like its grocery bretheren. I doubt people will want to buy them for personal use (cars represent individuality and these cars look anything but unique), but the team's idea is something a little more practical:
"We have to think of city cars as not just small-footprint vehicles that can squeeze into tight spaces but ones that can work in unison and also be almost like a parasite that leeches on to mass-transit systems," says Mr Chin. While Smart changed the way people think about parking and size, the MIT engineers felt that, as it had not been widely adopted and congestion and pollution problems had got no better, its success had been limited.
So the MIT team started from scratch to come up with their own concept: a stackable, shareable, electric, two-passenger car. "Imagine a shopping cart - a vehicle that can stack - you can take the first vehicle out of a stack and off you go," says Mr Chin. "These stacks would be placed throughout the city. A good place would be outside a subway station or a bus line or an airport, places where there's a convergence of transportation lines and people."
The cars use a funky technology the creators call "wheel robots," which actually power the car in place of a motor, freeing up space on the inside as well. They can rotate 360 degrees, and can move in any direction. They say it's like driving a computer chair, and I imagine it's about as safe as one, too, against the local buses and crazy motorists. It's up to GM to make the car happen, and I say good luck, since what they're doing flies in the face of about 100 years of motoring technology and culture.
Robot car: streets ahead in cities of the future [Guardian Unlimited]
"We have to think of city cars as not just small-footprint vehicles that can squeeze into tight spaces but ones that can work in unison and also be almost like a parasite that leeches on to mass-transit systems," says Mr Chin. While Smart changed the way people think about parking and size, the MIT engineers felt that, as it had not been widely adopted and congestion and pollution problems had got no better, its success had been limited.
So the MIT team started from scratch to come up with their own concept: a stackable, shareable, electric, two-passenger car. "Imagine a shopping cart - a vehicle that can stack - you can take the first vehicle out of a stack and off you go," says Mr Chin. "These stacks would be placed throughout the city. A good place would be outside a subway station or a bus line or an airport, places where there's a convergence of transportation lines and people."
The cars use a funky technology the creators call "wheel robots," which actually power the car in place of a motor, freeing up space on the inside as well. They can rotate 360 degrees, and can move in any direction. They say it's like driving a computer chair, and I imagine it's about as safe as one, too, against the local buses and crazy motorists. It's up to GM to make the car happen, and I say good luck, since what they're doing flies in the face of about 100 years of motoring technology and culture.
Robot car: streets ahead in cities of the future [Guardian Unlimited]