MIT Reinvents Transportation With Foldable, Stackable Car

alphadogg writes "Parking in a downtown area is one of the least enjoyable elements of driving. MIT researchers may have found a solution: a car you can fold up before parking. The boxy conveyance folds in half, and the plan is for the vehicle to fit eight in one conventional parking spot. 'Franco Vairani, a Ph.D. candidate at MIT and one of the original designers in the City Car project, said his team is taking a vending-machine approach to city travel. In his vision of the future, people would find a stack of electrical-powered City Cars on nearly every block in the city. When a user would want to drive somewhere in town, he would swipe a smart card or cell phone across an electronic reader and take a car out of the stack. When he gets to a business meeting across town, a shopping mall or their doctor's office, the driver simply leaves the car in a stack at his destination. The drivers don't own the cars. They simply rent them. It's fully self-service. The next person takes a car out of the stack, and off he goes.'"

Sorta like

[xx01dk]

those rentable carts you see at the mall or the airport. It's an interesting idea but I think this will go the way of the Seguay... It's a neat idea in theory and on paper (and it works with the aforementioned carts) but IMHO people are going to reject such contrivances on a mass scale in our individualistic society. As I said, IMHO mind you, I'm not about to give up the option of picking up my girl/kid with my throaty V-8 coupe at the airport/bar/school/work/etc over some envirocentric/socialist's wet dream of public/personal transport. I can see this in an amusement park ride ala Ebcot center maybe, but as an every-day contrivance? Nah, sorry, pass.

silly solutions to simple problems

[azgard]

Great! Another silly solution to a simple problem. You americans are really crazy - instead of making good and cheap public transport system, you are inventing things as carpool lanes and foldable cars. I am from Prague, and we have quite good subway here, which transports one Prague's population per day. It's like with those electronic voting machines (we use traditional ballots, and usually get the results in 6 hours after closing the polls) or healthcare system (we have socialized one with not much problems for patients, but efforts to dismantle it are unfortunately underway).

Re:The American educational system;

[aussie_a]

You're post while hyperbolic, isn't too far off the mark. You talk about dishwashers and the idea of sharing them with other people, but what about laundromats? Isn't that basically your idea except with clothing instead of dishes? Some ideas that don't work when it comes to sharing: * Houses - most people like to be in a house at roughly the same time (i.e. at night when they're sleeping) so they're going to all need to be "unfolded" (or inhabited for a more realistic option) by everyone at a particular time of day. * Dishwashers - Most people will use these at the same time of day (around 7:00-8:00 pm). Some ideas they do work with: * Laundries - There's no set time that most people will use these. * Toilets - In ancient London (i.e. 1940s) these were communal and shared by a block of flats. Although most people would prefer to pay more and get a clean toilet (males will know why. Is it so hard to piss into the bowl?!?!?!?) A more realistic option with cars would be to take away the foldable part and simply have car pick-up places spread throughout cities with cars able to be driven from one point to any point in America (you simply have to say how long you plan on taking it for and pay for it. There'd be a grace period and you'd also have the ability to phone ahead). Each car would be cleaned before the next person used it so if you left anything behind they'd put it aside for you. There'd also be a complimentary bus to take you to and from your home. If you drove a LOT within a typical day this would be more expensive, but for many it would turn out to be cheaper (there'd be a threshold where one hour you break even, the next its more expensive). I believe there is another idea with some communities that do have communal cars, but from the lack of widespread news on them I'm guessing the idea hasn't caught on. Personally the idea of communal cars doesn't exactly excite me. Considering how clean trains and movie theatres are, I'd rather stick with a car I own.

I should preview

[aussie_a]

This is the formatted version of the above post:

You're post while hyperbolic, isn't too far off the mark. You talk about dishwashers and the idea of sharing them with other people, but what about laundromats? Isn't that basically your idea except with clothing instead of dishes? Some ideas that don't work when it comes to sharing:
* Houses - most people like to be in a house at roughly the same time (i.e. at night when they're sleeping) so they're going to all need to be "unfolded" (or inhabited for a more realistic option) by everyone at a particular time of day.
* Dishwashers - Most people will use these at the same time of day (around 7:00-8:00 pm).

Some ideas they do work with:
* Laundries - There's no set time that most people will use these.
* Toilets - In ancient London (i.e. 1940s) these were communal and shared by a block of flats. Although most people would prefer to pay more and get a clean toilet (males will know why. Is it so hard to piss into the bowl?!?!?!?)

A more realistic option with cars would be to take away the foldable part and simply have car pick-up places spread throughout cities with cars able to be driven from one point to any point in America (you simply have to say how long you plan on taking it for and pay for it. There'd be a grace period and you'd also have the ability to phone ahead). Each car would be cleaned before the next person used it so if you left anything behind they'd put it aside for you. There'd also be a complimentary bus to take you to and from your home. If you drove a LOT within a typical day this would be more expensive, but for many it would turn out to be cheaper (there'd be a threshold where one hour you break even, the next its more expensive).

I believe there is another idea with some communities that do have communal cars, but from the lack of widespread news on them I'm guessing the idea hasn't caught on.

Personally the idea of communal cars doesn't exactly excite me. Considering how clean trains and movie theatres are, I'd rather stick with a car I own.

Re:It'll never work

[Bloke down the pub]

OK. How about you have this kind of shared car but - here's the clever bit - it comes with a driver, supplied as part of the service. You get in, the driver takes you exactly where you want to go, you pay for the time or maybe distance, then the deal's done. No need to worry about parking. The car (with its driver) is free to go off and take someone else where he wants to go.

Pry my car from..

[nurb432]

My cold dead hands.

No thanks, car ownership is part of the independence of the American way.

Re:Cool stuff but what about safety?

[pclminion]

The "car" looks like four-wheel motorbikes. It seems convenient but I have to have about its security concerns if accident happens. Maybe we should allocate special lanes for these "cars".

What about banning "normal" cars within the city core?