City car: The Smart Cities group at MIT’s Media Lab is developing a shared-use electric car (top) that folds and stacks like a shopping cart. A working prototype of the car will be unveiled next year. (Note: The top image is an illustration.) The bottom image shows a close-up of a half-scale wheel prototype with built-in suspension and electric motors.
Franco Vairani (top), Peter Schmitt (bottom)
An MIT group hopes that its foldable electric vehicles will cut pollution, and ease congestion.
The Smart Cities group at the MIT Media Lab is working on two low-cost electric vehicles that it hopes will revolutionize mass transit and help alleviate pollution. Next week, the group will unveil a prototype of its foldable electric scooter at the EICMA Motorcycle Show, in Milan. A prototype for the team's foldable electric car, called the City Car, is slated to follow next year.
The MIT group sees the vehicles as the linchpin in a strategy that aims to mitigate pollution with electric power, expand limited public space by folding and stacking vehicles like shopping carts, and alleviate congestion by letting people rent and return the vehicles to racks located near transportation hubs, such as train stations, airports, and bus depots.
"We're looking at urban personal mobility in a much more sustainable way than the private automobile provides," says William Mitchell, director of the Smart Cities research group.
The group's strategy will efficiently solve the "last mile" problem without losing the virtues of the private automobile, Mitchell says. The last mile is that inconvenient distance between any major transit stop and a person's final destination. While a traditional automobile provides mobility on demand and gets you to your destination, its negative externalities--congestion and pollution--seem intractable.
At the heart of these vehicles is an omnidirectional robot wheel that the team has developed. The wheel encases an electric-drive motor, as well as suspension, steering, and braking systems. With no engine or mechanical parts between the wheels and the driver's controls, the system offers great flexibility in design. The driver can, in fact, fold the car up (see below image). Six to eight folded and stacked City Cars can fit into one conventional parking space. General Motors sponsored the development of the car.
This illustration shows how City Cars stack together.
Credit: Franco Vairani
The wheels also enable incredible maneuverability. Instead of making U-turns, the car can spin on the spot, and when the driver turns each wheel 90 degrees, the car can parallel-park by moving sideways.
"The idea for a wheel motor has been around for a long time," says Peter Schmitt, designer of the wheel. But Schmitt says that the advantage of his design is that the wheel is controlled by software instead of by mechanical coupling.
The MIT team's vision of deploying these cars in a shared-use, personal-mobility system isn't new either. In Lyon, France, a company called Velo'v recently introduced a shared-use bicycle system throughout the city. Based on its initial success, the Velo'v system is being extended to Paris with approximately 2,000 stacks and 20,000 bicycles.
Small, automatic electric vehicles will be demonstrated in two new projects.
He must be raking in the licensing fees.
I just think that "Peter Schmitt, designer of the wheel," is a really great line to take out of context. :)
2 issues:
1) Crash survivability - would it even get
one star? Its not allowed on streets with speed
limits over 30mph?
2) Nice of them to export the pollution to the suburbs. The electricity comes out of this socket and does not pollute. How BLONDE!
Push for building some Nuclear power plants, or
perhaps make the Kennedys allow wind mills of the Boston coast (MIT students). When this is powered by coal fires in the suburbs, it is classic city dwellers exporting problems to the countryside.
Maybe add solar panels to them all.
A little more on nuclear:
http://www.theconservativevoice.com/articles/article.html?id=29003
I definitely agree. I don't think the car will withstand any crash. It's just too flimsy.
In addition, the problem of the electricity supply still has to be sorted out.
The safety issue is not a problem as long as the gas pig SUV are outlawed from city streets. At any rate they would be safer than motorcycles and with 40 KPH limit to speed I would think an airbag and safety roll cage would protect the occupants.
The efficiency is so much higher for EV's then gas powered vehicles the argument about where the energy will come from is almost laughable. It would be except some people actually think there is a foundation for it. The rental agency could put up roof top solar panels.
I'm sat with a Japanese colleague here and he immediately saw the advantages. OK, so the US might not be ready to accept this, but nor was Britain and Europe ready for the Smart car when it was first released....now, one of the most popular cars on the road - why, because the eventual advantages and the foresight of at least reducing some of the disadvantages of personal transport were recognised and addressed.
I see this as the perfect commuter transport and as for crash protection - again, I point you at the Smart car. The misconception that you need weight, inertia and thumping great sheets of steel to protect you in a crash is just plain wrong. The NCAP statistics show this over and over again. Good design, good quality control on the product and clever use of materials can win. OK, there might not be much left of the vehicle, but the safety compartment is left in tack and as with Race cars these days, the more energy that is dissipated through crumpling, the less energy is absorbed by the occupants.
Also put this into context with regards fuel prices. People don't drive SUV's in the same numbers in the rest of the world (bar probably Australia and Canada to a degree) so there is a reduced chance of impact in the first place (look at the stats for crashes in SUV's vs cars)
Anyway, I'm all for this, I think the addition of stackability is very interesting, especially when you see the eyes light up on my Japaese counterpart. As for me, living in South Boston and parking up to a mile away from my home - I'd sign up for one today.
LOL - what if you're the guy in the middle?
Say you rent the thing for the day, park it somewhere and you get boxed in?
I assume there would be some mechanism to just grab the first car in the line? What if you were shopping and had to leave some items in your vehicle?
Lots of logistical things to be worked out, but looks like a step in the right direction.
I've seen a company recently called ZipCars (www.zipcar.com) that does something like this - they have very small cars (Minis, smartCars, etc) set up in lots all over the city.. Make your reservation online, and pick up your car.
Guest (fastfilm)
Umm, did you read the entire article? The 2nd page already talks about this.
Re: LOL - what if you're the guy in the middle?
Like a luggage cart at an airport, you only return it to the "stack" when you're done with it. Otherwise, you park it like any other car.
On paper, cars everyone shares and are all willing to stack are as good an idea as any. Can we find any real-world sociological example from a post-iron age society of 50+ individuals where similar principals of sharing and communialism have succeeded? I prefer development on the flying car myself.
Ha! Stackable, multi-person use is great, provided they all don't end up in the same popular destinations.
But flying cars??!! They would have to be totally robotic with minimal input from the user. Drivers of cars already have trouble with 2 dimensions, heaven help us if they have to maneuver in 3d space. Road rage? How about Air rage! Flying isn't a video game.
Having a vehicle you can pick up and leave at the transit station is a neat idea, but one look at the back of most people's cars will show the problem with it. Most people prefer their private vehicles because they have too much STUFF: Shopping stuff, kids stuff, emergency stuff, sports stuff, even leftover dinner stuff. Families have minivans for a reason - and it's not to impress the neighbours.
For example, you go grocery shopping... how do you get the groceries from the parking stall to the train/bus/subway and then back at the other end. If we didn't have any stuff to carry, the "last mile" would be a pleasant walk. We typically have so much stuff with us, 50 yards is an ordeal.
Get a private lockable vehicle, that can hold all our stuff, that we can take with us on the train, or link together to form a train, and you'll have something. In our materialistic society, private cars are not really for transporting us - we're easy to transport - they are for transporting all the things we "need" with us.
David...
Your right, the problem is stuff, but the solution is not more stuff to move your stuff. I live in Tokyo, I do walk the last mile or two, just because it is enjoyable. I don't need 90% of the stuff you want to haul around 90% of the time. For the 10% of the time I need 10% of the stuff carying it is not that bad or take a taxi or foldable car, or get it delivered.
Stuff, and thus acceptance of transit, is a culture thing. This car isn't going to fix that. If you don't have the stuff, you can walk or ride a bike. You don't need a car for the last mile of transit. Lots of people use transit instead of driving. But, they're already using transit - this car isn't going to make them drive less. The people that don't use transit aren't going to start because they have the option of a car at the other end. Stuff is a door to door problem. No, this car will not help significant numbers of people to start using transit, as advertised.
Now, it may be really popular in places where parking is crazy, like some parts of Japan. I could see people buying them for personal use just so they could park 2 in their home single-car spot. I could see corporations running fleets of them so they could be packed together in a small place at the end of work. Or, maybe budget rental kiosks for tourists - though range may be an issue. But, as an adjunct to transit? I don't see these cars doing anything useful. Not in places where private cars are the problem.
If you want to get people to use public transit instead of driving their cars, you have to solve their problems. I blundered into city rush-hour while on a shopping trip last week. I couldn't believe the traffic - and that people would actually choose to do that every day. My first thought was "they're insane" but I expect if you asked any of them, they would have perfectly valid (to them) reasons why they're there, in their car, idling, rather than using available public transit. My reason was stuff, I was picking up a bunch of heavy tools. I'll bet stuff was the reason a lot of those other people were on the road too.
You can talk about culture change all you want, but if last Friday was any indication, people have a very high tolerance for pain. How are you going to change their behaviour, get them to change their culture? These people are burning expensive gas, while idling in packed traffic, for an hour or more at a time, every day, day after day. You are not going to force them to change; a stick isn't going to do it.
I think you have to give them an easy alternative that will work for them in their current lives. However, this folding electric car isn't it, not around here.
David...
Ryuuguu is right. Fixerdave's argument is an old one that millions of strap-hangers demonstrate is bogus every day.
In cities where transit is the norm (e.g., large cities in Germany and Japan) stores offer delivery service. When you buy large stuff, you expect to have it delivered. In airports in Japan, there are services that will deliver your baggage to your house while you take transit home, unencumbered. One truck making 10 deliveries uses less energy and clogs the roads less than 10 private vehicles.
I don't know why the Lyon experience with their velo-v service got so much publicity. We have such a system here in Barcelona, Spain and the issue of redistribution of the bikes is really a tough one.
I live outside Barcelona and go downtown perhaps once a week. When I arrive about mid-morning, there is not a single bike to be found in none of the bike racks several blocks around the train station, even though there are several large racks just nearby. On the other hand, once I find a bike and take it, it is often hard to find an empty slot in any of the racks close to my destination, whichever that might be.
The system is, indeed, quite a success and the number of bikes, bike racks and slots within them was greatly increased from what was planned at this stage. I don't know whether (and would doubt) the number of shuffling trucks have been increased.
With bikes, the redistribution is quite easy. A van, which also carries an air compressor for the tires and other items for maintenance (when it's not shuffling bikes around), pulls a small trailer which can carry about two dozen bikes, almost a full parking rack at once. Even with this, bikes are not evenly distributed.
The central system knows at all times the state of the racks. Each customer has an RFID card and each bike also has an RFID chip close to the hook that latches it to the rack. The bike has no other electronics, it is the racks that check the customer, unlatches the bike and then, on return, reads which bike was it. So the central system knows which bike is in which slot at which rack, unless it is on the road. It is not a matter of statistics, like occupancy rates and such, the central system knows exactly how the bikes are distributed, and still it can't quite cope.
While the bike shuffling van can carry two dozen bikes at a time, I can't imagine the size of a truck capable of carrying any number of small cars, foldable or not. Actually, I wouldn't fold them and load them but just tow them. (folded if you wish). A towing vehicle should be planned that can pass by the side of a line of parked cars, stop just ahead and have the cars join at the end of the line autonomously and fast and, likewise, be able to drop them at other pick up stations fast and with minimum driver intervention. The towed cars don't need to be able to drive themselves in traffic, the parking stations might have some guidance system the cars could use for this maneuvering and a traffic light may hold the traffic while the cars are joining or dropping out of the line. The towing vehicle would not pull the cars but guide them through traffic, each under its own power. Unless the pick up stations have recharging capabilities (coils under the pavement?), the tow vehicle might also provide recharging from an otherwise too expensive source to put one in each car (fuel cell, gas turbine burning some bio-fuel?).
So, the car by itself is no solution if it is not within a system which can offer enough cars where they are needed. Letting them pile up in the business district during working hours and at train stations at night is no good. Redistribution is essential.
Lyon's public bikes system got so much publicity because it rocks.
So does Barcelona's bicing, for which I'm addicted.
Yes, sometimes there are some problems of availability both to get and to deposit a bike, but overall, I think that the system is a major success. Absolutely all technologies need a certain time to polish defects, and users need to learn to live with them too. You can plan for gold and do nothing for ages. Even if the sytem has is drawbacks I think it was a total success to have it introduced.
Regarding the redistribution issue. One thing we learned from the bikes is that definitively you need to dimension the network considering the 'migration' movements. For the specific issue of the stackable cars, a potential option would be to: (i) have an army of drivers, or (ii) more efficient, that the cars can be linked ina chain so that a single driver can move let's say 10 of them to a new location.
On the other hand, I'd love to see a no-car city in the very early future. The folded cars are a good starting point get people used to it. Therefore, keep the good work!!
I didn't mean to imply the system is not good, quite the contrary, I am a very happy user even if I have to walk a little bit, but I usually don't go downtown with a tight schedulle so I have time to enjoy the walk and the biking so I am not the regular user who has to go everyday to the office and doesn't want to 'waste time' walking (for me, it is not a waste).
My point is that a system without a means of redistributing the vehicles is no good. If there is no redistribution, you don't need even half the passengers of the first rush hour train to arrive in the morning to wipe out all bikes several blocks around the station.
The issue in Paris (which also has a bike rental system) is that most people take bikes in high areas, go down, and few people use them uphill...
An approach was to offer free extra time for people going uphill. Which is not such a present, because while going up along the Pere Lachaise, it gets really upward!!!
Hi, Paris and Barcelona have these "hill-issues". Could there be a small electrical motor (built-in-wheel) and battery charged at storage station.
THEN, GPS tells where there is REAL uphill and only there motor can be used. (This is called anti-lazy man-protection-system ;) )
Regards from Stockholm !
Whilst technically clever, I think the ability of to spin a car on the spot might result in a certain degree of carnage!
The same is true of the ability to drive 65 miles an hour.
You mean like kids playing who dares to pass through the tunnel while the car is folding, or curious toddlers getting their hands caught in the mechanism?
What is the real problem you are addressing?
We have tried for years to mitigate congestion by building wider roads - and it has never worked. Won't making cars smaller simply allow more room for other cars to enter the roads? There will still be people with sedans, suv's and trucks. I can't see how a smaller car will alleviate congestion in any way. I do like the idea of sharing cars and possibly reducing parking lot areas, but I wonder... are there people on this group examining policy proposals that would go hand in hand with this new technology? What if parking space costs were scaled with the size of the car?
Re: What is the real problem you are addressing?
Yes, here in Stockholm we have congestion fees. But they are size neutral. Better to have a length/width/weight-algorithm. Would possibly make it 4 times more expensive to go in with a huge SUV.
IF all cars in Sthlm. were the size of this described car (even without folding), the parking space would double.
Regards!
I really hope MIT people read these, because I want the to hear what I'm going to say.
A couple of problems I found were that the "last mile"problem may still exist, and that you can't leave stuff in the car. To the former, have the racks electronic and mobile. Look at it this way: when you call an elevator, you press the button and wait for the elevator to come to the floor you are on. Put a button in the car that calls a rack to you. That way, you can drive the car to your house/apartment, push the button, and a rack comes in a minute. Take your stuff out of the car, and watch it fold up, and drive away.
To my latter problem, expand the back of the car and minimize the front. I don't know if this is a two seater or a four seater, but make the bank triangular, with the hypotenuse as the back of the seat in front. Or just don't stack the car while you are out shopping.
As to the power problem, buy a desert somewhere and put a ton of solar cells there. And get DARPA to finance it.
You didn't think your cunning plan all the way through
How do you get your car out if it's sandwiched in the middle of a pack of these things?
Re: You didn't think your cunning plan all the way through
The cars are communal. Much like Zip Car, a user doesn't own any one car.
Re: You didn't think your cunning plan all the way through
Well as of now there doesn't seem to be anything that denote's a car as anymore "your's" than it is "mine". However, if the cars are temporarily "our's" with our stuff in them, supposedly the wheels turn 90 degrees allowing you slide out sideways, and if not then the cars could possibly be automated and create a few inches of space in front and behind your car with out drivers in them.
Re: You didn't think your cunning plan all the way through
Even IF you institute this system, but on a private owner basis, you would gain parking space by folding but don't let each car "clutch" into each other but being able to "90 degree" "sliding-in".
Regards from Stockholm!
Guest (Why)
Energy generation ref. New Scientist
Why not look ata below solution instead of polluting (yes, at the source) electricity?
Metal 'muscles'
Autonomous robots, micro-scale air vehicles, and prosthetic limbs are all supposed to operate for long periods without recharging or refuelling, making efficient energy supply crucial.
Nature's choice is to provide chemical power for natural actuators like muscles. Human engineers have typically taken another route, relying on converting electrical energy into mechanical energy using motors, hydraulic systems, or piezoelectric actuators.
This is much less efficient, meaning even the most athletically capable robot must be wired to a stationary power source for much of the time.
The ideal solution is an artificial muscle that can convert chemical energy directly and efficiently into mechanical energy, says Ray Baughman a physicist at the NanoTech Institute at the University of Texas in Dallas, US.
Baughman says he has built such a device made of a "shape memory" alloy of nickel and titanium. The metal is coated with a platinum catalyst and placed in a device that allows methanol to be drawn along the surface.
Exposing the surface to air causes the methanol to be oxidised, which heats the alloy and makes it bend in a pre-determined way. Cutting off the methanol supply lets the alloy cool and causes the alloy to its original shape.
Baughman says the device can generate stresses 500 times greater than human muscle and believes further significant improvements should be possible.
Well, here is a possibility...
Well, each rack might be like a hanger. In your closet, you put clothes in and out efficiently by storing the clothes on hangers, so that they are all even, neat, and easy to find and remove. The same principle may apply here. Picture the rack moving the car out of the rest, then lowering it enough for the car to unfold.
However, I am open to ideas on this one. My way requires a lot of electricity, and possibly hydraulics. Maybe that other guy with the chemical robots has the solution - you would only really need two positions for each hanger.
Only solves the problem at one end
This would be nice if mass transport didn't quite make it to your destination, but it wouldn't help you if mass transport were not located near your home. So you would still need a car, in which case it would almost certainly be cheaper just to drive your car directly to your destination.
Let's face it: the main cause of global warming, pollution, dependency on foreign oil, habitat destruction, etc. is the suburban lifestyle, which involves long daily commutes (mostly alone), large houses, large cars, and walking/biking done exclusively for exercise/recreation.
Brillant idea but not for parking evidently. The trick is to get electric quick charge stations from renewale energy or a battery manufacturer inteligent enough to develope a battery pack for quick plug-in and rapid disconnect allowing them to lease batteries fully charged. Takes responsability away from automobile mfg. which they can't rip you off for, and enables them to produce their electric cars NOW. Furthermore a profitable business for battery mfg. or independant enreprenures' interested in bringing new technical products to market with latest clean tecnology for generating power to charge batteries at night and selling power to the utilities during the day at good profit. 1)Spread the clean energy, devise profitability and quick return on investment. Battery people would have a vested interest in quality and preformance under controlled conditions without dependancy on fossel fuel. 2)0% pollution and ecology responsable. We the people need a break from petrol NOW please. Right on mass transit and local commodity vehicals that all can afford. With nano technology and capacitor banks capeable of quick charge maybe a drive through will be sofficient to recharge. So much is said and so little is done when confronted by the deep pocketed fossel fuel competition.
That is a really good idea, having fast, battery-charging stations. I am someone who does not like society's dependence on oil, and if rechargeable batteries is the future, that is fine with me. I think a useful idea might be (I hope MIT people are reading this) to combine multiple forms of energy. Create a big wind mill. The add solar panels onto all of the blades. Then attach a lightning rod to the top. Think about it:
1)Combines almost every clean energy source.
2)Never really stops getting power - when it is sunny, solar cells collect, when it is windy, the actual windmill collects, and when it is dark and stormy, the lightning rod collects.
3)Pretty efficient use of space.
Just make sure you have a lot of wiring at the other end.
I like the innovative way you think. I'd be a little concerned about the lightning rod part of it, though. You have a million volts going through all at once. It would seem that a surge protector capable of handling that much charge would be prohibitively expensive, but I could be wrong. Incidentally, it is now two and a half years later. Anyone have any idea where and how this is going now?
This is a great and novel idea. Instead of parking your car in the garage, you just take the mass transit system (assuming one is available), use the Stackable, drop it at your office garage (charging station with attendant), go to work. Then reverse the process at lunch and end of day. There are parking attendants all over most city lots who can manage the 'stack'. Maybe mass transit will finally work!
The concept is brilliant. This is the way to go for crowded downtown's. I have been working with a similar but not so great concept. It can be seen at http://dancrissco.wordpress.com
It is a user configurable PC, Office Work Station, Media Station & Personal Emotional Mobile Hybrid.
It is christened the pemmPOD and has an autmated guidance system to follow painted lines in cities with a peemPOD miniway
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Gaetano Marano
246 Comments
>>> Sorry, but, it's NOT a good idea >>>
.
the "foldable" city car surely IS an original idea (good to have a large press coverage...) but can't solve the REAL problem of that kind of cars
the electric city cars need to have a VERY LOW COST to succeed
the "foldable" system adds some mechanical complexity to that cars (and to its maintenance...) so, it can only increase its price
save a three feet of space on parking is not a so big advantage that can justify the increase of complexity and costs
.
Reply
asdar
73 Comments
Re: >>> Sorry, but, it's NOT a good idea >>>
The cost wouldn't kill the idea, if the car lasted long enough. A lot of people come into the city and this would be perfect for them.
I don't think many people like taxi rides, bus or subway. This would be a nice private way to see the city.
Reply
Monsterboy
92 Comments
Re: >>> Sorry, but, it's NOT a good idea >>>
As someone who lives in an area where it regularly takes 20 minutes or more to find a parking space (often blocks from your destination), I can vouch for this.
Reply
Harpagon
2 Comments
Re: >>> Sorry, but, it's NOT a good idea >>>
I actually think it WOULD be a good idea for a concept I have in mind. I want to create a rental community that would be pollution-free for anyone who wanted it to be. This would fit hand in glove with the transportation end of that goal. Instead of multiple garages, there could be a single sheltered area rack of these cars. I don't know what they're projecting the price would be, but it couldn't be that expensive, and it could be part of the perqs of living there. One problem I didn't see addressed here is what about theft? If they were just a few hundred pounds, conceivably someone could just pitch one of them into the back of a pickup truck at whatever parking lot they were parked at and drive away with it.
Reply