MIT Offers City Car for the Masses 290
MIT's stackable electric car, a project to improve urban transportation will make its debut this week in Milan. "The City Car, a design project under way at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, is envisioned as a two-seater electric vehicle powered by lithium-ion batteries. It would weigh between 1,000 and 1,200 pounds and could collapse, then stack like a shopping cart with six to eight fitting into a typical parking space. It isn't just a car, but is designed as a system of shared cars with kiosks at locations around a city or small community."
Moore's Law, anyone? (Score:2, Insightful)
So every 18 months they'll come out with a newer model, which folds into half the space and cost less. At the end of 12 years it will be a skateboard. Got news for them, Santa Cruz is already there.
RTFH? read the post! (Score:4, Insightful)
"but is designed as a system of shared cars with kiosks..."
nobody owns individual cars, you subscribe to the service and grab a car from a kiosk wherever you need one.
And then Boston tipped over and slid into the sea (Score:2, Insightful)
What happens when the all end up at the same place in town on a Friday night
Tragedy of the Commons? (Score:5, Insightful)
Not that this isn't a great idea. It's just depressing that people will purposefuly ruin things like this.
(Okay, so not exactly "Tragedy of the Commons")
Shared Cars = Yellow Bike = Failure (Score:2, Insightful)
People like owning private property. In fact, they like it so much that given a chance to "borrow" a vehicle, they'll never return it. But if someone follows through on this idea, thefts will probably go down for a week or so when the same people who stole yellow bikes to support their drug habit do the same with the cars, at a much higher profit.
I get the idea but there is a better solution (Score:3, Insightful)
Anyways, there is a much more elegant soltution to the "Last Mile Problem" in the form of Personal Rapid Transit [wikipedia.org]. These scholars should devote their energy to the study and advancement of this system.
Re:Tragedy of the Commons? (Score:2, Insightful)
This is something one notices when one travels. Different care accorded the 'commons'. Some people take a certain civic pride that their city is clean and free of vandalism. Others believe it is someone else's problem to look after everything.
Re:Shared Cars = Yellow Bike = Failure (Score:4, Insightful)
And what's this I hear about a company called Zipcar offering hourly car rentals in cities all over the US? Ha! It'll never catch on. I'll bet those commies will find their shared cars being full of graffiti and ripped seats and radios ripped out for drug money.
Re:Moore's Law, anyone? (Score:3, Insightful)
Comment removed (Score:2, Insightful)
incidental items are a deal-breaker (Score:5, Insightful)
Rented vehicles of any kind, or small vehicles meant to only carry people and not much else reduce the abilty to carry stuff around. Riding a bike while carrying a briefcase can be a challenge, let alone hauling a network switch or linux server from train to bus, bus to rented folding car, rented folding car to bike, bike to building. The plain fact about public or shared transit is that storage or transfer of even the most trivial item throughout the day becomes a nightmare.
It's easy to treat this as an irrelevant issue but it's a vital part of everyday life and urban planners need to stop ignoring it if they want to find solutions that people can actually live with.
Comment removed (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Up Close (Score:5, Insightful)
2. Unlike trains, the "stations" could be at every corner, since all that would be needed is a few square feet and a card reader. Also, unlike trains, a station at every corner doesn't mean you have to stop at every corner all the way to your destination.
3. No unexpected huge repair bills -- maintenance and repairs are just part of the fee.
4. More space in your garage, since you don't have to own a car.
5. Parking is easy to find -- just go to a kiosk.
6. You don't have to pay for parking. Imagine driving one of these to the airport.
7. Drive into town, go out drinking, cab it back home without having to go back to retrieve your car the next day.
8. Any given car is in use a higher percentage of the time, so if everyone (or a large fraction of everyone) did this, we wouldn't have to devote nearly as much land to parking lots.
9. Need exercise? Walk to the grocery store, buy a cart full of groceries, drive back home. This also reduces gas usage/environmental impact by 50% compared to driving both ways.
10. Drive to work on a rainy morning. When the weather clears in the afternoon, walk back home.
11. If you get a flat tire, just call maintenance, then grab another car and keep going.
Re:Moore's Law, anyone? (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Shared Cars = Yellow Bike = Failure (Score:3, Insightful)
A fact about libraries that you are either a) unacquainted with from not having visited and actual library, or b) deliberately ignore because it spoils your snarky little reply. Unlike the bicycles - books are not simply left about for anyone to take from a library. You have a library card, and the library knows full well who took them - and when. (And despite that, theft and vandalism are ongoing problems for libraries.)
As above, do I really need to explain to you the difference between bicycles left lying about for free usage - and a car that you rent with the owner of the car having full knowledge of who has it and when? (As well as having your credit card number and a record of insurance.)
Re:incidental items are a deal-breaker (Score:3, Insightful)
If you're hauling around network switches, servers, or other bulky heavy stuff for work, your business needs to provide an appropriate vehicle. And if you're hauling that crap to and from home, you need to stop working at two places. Pick an office, or a home, and work there.
I guess the point is that most people who claim they need a Land Crusher SUV to carry their stuff around are mistaken. They simply need to avoid lugging all their crap everywhere.
Re:You need solutions that work for all ages (Score:3, Insightful)
But most of us are fit enough to walk up to a mile or so (and longer for that matter) and the world would be a better place if those who can do that also did. There are already electric wheelchairs and similar things for people who can't walk, so if that's what they're trying to solve, they're a bit late.
Painful result. (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:other ideas (Score:3, Insightful)
Then simply reverify the card/driver's license on rental.
You don't have to prevent all theft - just enough that you can still make a profit. Given that you'd probably put a number of anti-theft and tracking measures in, and the items wouldn't exactly be 'open market' items, so you'd have to part it out - but most users of those systems would also be corporate types with the vehicles on contract - so the aftermarket value is limited.
And a few cameras. Take a picture when the person presents his ID, take pictures of the vehicle leaving(beginning condition), and pictures of the vehicle returning(ending condition). Something comes up, review the pictures.