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Wednesday, February 07, 2007

Introducing: The ModulMobil

While on the way to work yesterday, I noticed that almost everyone - including me - was commuting alone, wasting goodness knows how much gasoline. I passed a lone cyclist and thought it's too bad that not everyone can make that choice. Even a SmartCar isn't practical for many folks; while you'd think that childless couples like Sylvia and I would be ideally suited for such a vehicle, the truth is we need the extra space once or twice a month for shopping.

Still, most of the time my car is used by me alone for the morning and evening commute. Three empty passenger seats and an unused trunk, carted around every day for no purpose.

But what if the driver's seat was an independent compartment, detachable from the main vehicle? Say the left front section of the car was a three-wheeled, modular component that would lock into the main car or truck when carrying passengers or cargo, but when only the driver is present, you could leave most of the car behind and ferry only yourself to your destination?

I realize that there are a lot of design challenges facing this concept. The independent unit would have to have its own fuel storage, electical system, etc. And all that would probably add significantly to the weight and fuel consumption of the parent vehicle when the entire assembly is out on the road.

But if 90% of the time you leave that extra weight behind, I wonder if you'd wind up with a less polluting, more energy efficient vehicle overall.

This has probably already been tried somewhere, but the concept certainly tickles my fancy. Of course, you'd always need to back into your parking stall...

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

why don't you carpool with other blahgers?


MIah

Anonymous said...

Sheesh. I was ranting about exactly this subject on my way to my favorite Vietnamese Pho (like there's any other kind) restaurant. I was probably just annoying the other people in the car, but I was insistent that there must be some reasonable way to make a modular car so that you didn't always carry around unnecessary weight.

In fact, I saw a prototype in that vein on TV awhile back. It was basically an electric chassis with controls, motors and batteries, and everything else snapped onto it. Yeah. It'll never happen. Once we're off oil, though, energy will likely be clean and plentiful and it won't matter so much. Then maybe we can concentrate more on passenger safety.

ZeeBride said...

"Even a SmartCar isn't practical for many folks; while you'd think that childless couples like Sylvia and I would be ideally suited for such a vehicle, the truth is we need the extra space once or twice a month for shopping."

Of course a Smart car would be practical, think a bit outside the box. You say yourself you don't need a big car very often. With what you save in gas and insurance by having a small car, you probably could easily afford the taxi for your semimonthly shopping trip.

Anonymous said...

Cars of 2014
Earl, you're psychic... Check out slide # 7

Bruce