Back to some less controversial material for me, the third and last part of my little series of ideas I’ve had floating around in my head.  Controversial? Well, in my last post about Ultra Mobile PC’s, I raised a few eyebrows, I mentioned something about dead-end roads, which didn’t go down too well with some UMPC folk.

But I got a few interesting comments.  One of them pointed towards the fact that cars today come in many and varied shapes and offer a variety of solutions to a variety of people.  Essentially they were saying that Ultra Mobile PCs will be many and varied as well and suits different groups of people.  That maybe so, but I would argue that just because they are many and varied doesn’t mean that any of them are actually meeting our requirements as best they could.  If I was to use the same analogy, I would say the current UMPC’s are obviously still at the stage of the Model T ford or even earlier.  My point being that many mechanical and design details in the early evolutionary stage of the car are no longer with us, they came to a natural dead end and were replaced with better and longer lasting solutions… but anyway.  Or  is it?

It got me thinking, and the more I analyse it, the more it becomes apparent that people are used to dealing with inadequacies in most of the things they use in their day-to-day life - a sort of apathy.  But don’t mistake it for thinking things are working well for you.

This all brings me to the topic of this post, it seems the internal combustion engine… that burns petrol - is another thing that is on a dead end track.  Okay, maybe not completely dead end, but in the form of a ‘power plant’ for day-to-day transport, that seems to be an untenable proposition.  Rather than going into all the assumptions of that I’m just going to jump ahead to say that it seems electrical power will, more than likely, be the replacement.  The problem with that though, is the storage of energy.  The means of taking electrical energy with you in some sort portable form is decades behind all the other technology involved with electrical vehicles.  So what can be done in the meantime?  I think there is a solution…

What we currently have today?  

• Congested city roads 
• A need to go with green power. 
• A problem with limited ‘green power’ carrying capacity, leading to limited travel distances.
• The need (for leisure & for business) to travel reasonably long distances on a semi-regular basis… quickly.

A couple of those points seem to go together and a couple of them don’t! 

What this is… is an analysis of the viability of electric vehicles with current technology.  What is apparent is that they are a perfect solution for day-to-day travel except where long distances are concerned.  Due to their low power, electric cars will tend to be small and not very fast; which is fine for short and regular city trips.  Added to that, as I’m sure everybody has looked around them sitting a traffic jam, you realise most cars only have one person in them, again pointing to the fact there are many occasions where you don’t need a big car.  The trend is already on the way, the Smart car is a prime example of that. 
However, we all justify having a large car for those occasions we head away for a holiday or any other longer distance trip.  And if you have a family of 4 or 5 plus friends, then you’re also stuck with a bigger car.
 
But I think a certain amount of acceptance has built up about these perceptions, there are alternatives!  Don’t be too quick to accept the standard solution as being as good as it gets. 

Here’s an alternative for you… in two parts. 

Part 1: New cars (I’m just going to refer to my concept as ‘new cars’ from now on) well… they should be more modular.  For instance you could have a driving section and an additional towed section, fitting together in a close-knit fashion.  Simple, just leave the rear section behind when you don’t need it.  Neither section is particularly large, so you can easily fit at least two sections in a typical garage.  Modularity also offers a bit more versatility, as the rear section could the swapped in and out depending on the requirement.

Two: Travelling long distances in electric cars is going to be expensive and difficult for a long time yet.  Moreover, who really wants to drive their car long distances anyway?  It’s a chore!  Now let me remind you about trains.  Unfortunately, the train network here in Australia has been gathering dust for a long time, it’s more or less a working museum.  But I love train travel, and I now think it can play an important roll in the future of electric cars.  Consider this – small cars are good for the city, they are economical and they are also easy to fit on a train!  Many of them… sideways, slotted and stacked! 

This is not just about the car, it’s also about getting train carriages and train stations designed to accept small electric cars.  I don’t mean in a simplistic fashion where there is simply a platform on the carriage and little cars line up one by one in front of each other, and each one drives on one at a time.  No, I mean in a controlled fashion where your car is almost automatically lined up, boarding on mass, on many levels.  Once aboard, your car is attached to the carriage and becomes structurally integrated with it.  Your front window looks out the side, the train charges your batteries, sends you information about the train and the trip as you sit in the comfort of your car.  Sitting in isolation and the comfort of your little car, listen to the music you want to listen to, watch the movies you want to watch, smell the smells you want to smell!  And in the first scenario where you have a rear section attached with the rest of the family and gear it that, well it would be loaded in separate slot alongside the front section.

Now consider for a moment the train system which has been designed solely for this purpose.  You can now reduce the number of train stations, the train and tracks can be designed for long high-speed stretches where there is no need to stop every few minutes.  The carriages don’t even have to be fitted out.  Stations can be designed for quick embarking and disembarking, cars drive one from one side, drive off to the other side.

What I’m talking about is a highly integrated system of Standards, where the cars, trains and stations are designed to fit together, to a Standard!

Well that’s the crux of the idea.  The thing is all these ideas seem to come together in the end where all the positives and negatives compliment each other.

Here’s an example of what I mean, a sort of flow on effect.  Whenever you start thinking about ways to deal with growing problems of pollution, transport problems, the problems of congested cities… public transport becomes a very obvious solution.  However, there is one significant problem with public transport as we know it; that is certain people, in fact, whole segments of the population flatly refused to use it!  The reasons are simple, for one you are usually stripped of any status symbols.  2) You have to share, and 3) You are confronted with the society we live in on a personal level, which admittedly is sometimes the last thing you need at the end of a long day.  Yes I know I’m pandering to a rather negative human characteristic, but rather than trying to change the population to be socially friendly, maybe it’s easier to address the problem at hand, which I think this idea does!  It’s public transport… and private transport all at once.

I wouldn’t really know where to start with something like this… I imagine if I was some sort of politician responsible for roads and transportation in a district with major traffic and pollution problems I would be contracting team of experts to work together to develop a system of Standards.  Then maybe offer a rebate for car manufactures who offer cars meeting the standards laid out.  At the same time commissioning a new set of trains to take the cars, initially to operate on existing tracks stopping at converted stations. 

So I don’t know how to go about it, all I can say is that unfortunately it will rely on governments to back it.  But if this was a reality, I would be signing up for my very own little electric car right away!

So what do you think of that?

This entry was posted on Tuesday, August 21st, 2007 at 11:14 pm and is filed under My thoughts. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.