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The Future of Cars According to Toyota
Paulrothrock writes "HowStuffWorks has an interesting story about Toyota's concept, um, car, the PM. In addition to seating only one person and having its hubless wheels driven by electric motors, it incorporates wireless networking so that drivers could surrender control to another human-driven PM and relax as someone else drives them to work. And it reclines!"
...so that drivers could surrender control to another human-driven PM and relax as someone else drives them to work.
This takes the concept in everquest of mob/newb training to a whole 'nother level....
"All great things are simple & expressed in a single word: freedom, justice, honor, duty, mercy, hope." --Churchill
Pardon me, but that's bullshit. No one I know would want a one-passenger car. I mean, yeah, that might be nice for the commute to and from work. But what about the weekends? How are you gonna go to a rave and take 10 people with you in that thing? I think caravans were a little 19th century.
And what about people with kids? Are they gonna come out with a "follower" model? And how exactly is one gonna haul groceries home?
This will be great for those guys who only go to the office, then home to surf the net till it's time to go to work again. But people with lives and friends are gonna keep driving multi-passenger vehicles. Especially in rural areas, where we don't have great things like cabs and subways.
Only the purest of souls seek enlightenment. Everyone else just wants power.
- The drivers legs are used as the front bumper
- Virtually no cargo room
- Can't bring the kids along, since they won't be allowed to even sit in your PM until they get a drivers license
- I'm not about to let some other jerk drive for me. What if he cuts someone off and doesn't leave enough room for me?
- It's top heavy (although it can recline, alleviating this problem somewhat)
This is just another concept car that will never see the light of day, at least not in it's current form.I read the internet for the articles.
Since when did HowStuffWorks become a showcase for the corporate world? Shouldn't it be more about general concepts like hybrid cars as opposed to say, the Toyoda model specifically.
Blaze a trail to the New World
So you have NEVER ridden as a passenger in someone elses car?!?!?
The main problem I have with this car is the same reason I don't ride my motorcycle any more: 3000+ lb vehicles.
It would be fine if every single person on the road had a bike or one of these things, but with 99% of vehicles on the road today being 3000+ lb monsters, I don't want to be anywhere near them.
The drivers legs are used as the front bumper
...
Driving is dangerous. You're only safer in a SUV if you hit a little car. Hit something stationary or another SUV and the energies involved are much higher. Nevermind stopping distance and handling. We'd all be safer if drivers were a little more aware of their mortality.
Virtually no cargo room
A large percentage of the time, I have virtually no cargo. Like everyone else.
Can't bring the kids along, since they won't be allowed to even sit in your PM until they get a drivers license
Everywhere I am aware of in North America, kids get free bus rides to school if it's too far to walk. Life's tough. Be glad your kids haven't been drafted to go fight over oil.
I'm not about to let some other jerk drive for me. What if he cuts someone off and doesn't leave enough room for me?
I'd love to pay someone to drive for me, like a taxi service or an automatic driving lane. Do you know how much productivity you could gain?
It's top heavy (although it can recline, alleviating this problem somewhat)
Seen a SUV recently?
..don't panic
What's with all the talk of joysticks in next-gen concept cars? A normal steering wheel gives great flexibility: great detail control, and you can still whip out a sharp turn if you need to.
Imagine a sneeze jerking you into the neighboring car.
Furthermore, how dumb is it to replace gas/brake pedals w/ another joystick!?! Now you NEED 2 hands to drive! How are you going to mess with the radio or eat your Big Mac or call your mom?
Umm. Ever hear of a "taxi"?
The grass is only greener, if you don't take care of your own lawn.
Motorcycles (and mopeds)
-Use Less fuel
-Take up less space on the roads and while parked
-Are less expensive than cars
-Are inexpensive to maintain
Unfortunatly they are also more dangerous than cars on US roads.
I'd like to see the greenines push a more reliable, inexpensive and realistic solution to the problem.
"God fights on the side with the best artillery." - Napoleon, Marshal of France - speaking truth to power
Yes, but it's 1/4 the size of a regular car, so 4 times as many can fit on the roads.
What is the point of a one person transport? There isn't even room for an appreciable amount of luggage. If this is only to be used for personal commuting with few to none personal items, say to and from the office, then this person should be using the hyper efficient and comforatble mass transit system in place in the future. Oh that's right, there won't be one because companies are still designing products like this for the highest level of society where privilege and money rule and fuck-all to the environment and anyone who can't afford a person transport pod.
I'm not a tree-hugging hippie, but this is redeiculous. How about this for a concept car - one that actually gets more than 50 miles per gallon - that addresses today's problems in the real world where people need to haul stuff and other people around on a budget and where energy is limited.
-- I'm not a pessimist, I'm a realist. It's not my fault that life sucks so much. --
It would be more ironic, and not to mention tragically funny, if were a Toyota Sequoia instead of an Excursion.
The major difference is the other person currently is in the car with you. The consequences fall on them too.
With someone else not in the car they don't have the consequences if there is an accident. To them it's like game over on a console.
Evolution or ID?
US cities like San Francisco and New York (Manhattan) with high population densities and no parking this might work but does have the fruity image problem. This wold make crossing town and finding parking quite a bit easier for a daily commuter.
The 'high speed mode' is a bit baffling to me, i suspect that is just the concept car thing of "We can do it, thought it was cool so threw it in". Practically I doubt it could work in a mixed use expressway safely.
Underloved Movies and Pub Quiz: donotquestionme.org
Maybe not a 1 seater, but a 2 seater would be my optimum car. I'm sure there are others who would be fine driving around in a one seater most of the time.
Here we see an example of the idea that you can't automatically assume a product will fail simply because you don't know anyone who will use it.
What happened to the good old days of people driving because they *enjoyed* it? I have an '87 mustang convertible, and I love every minute I'm on the road. I *like* that I can take what's normally a 2 hour drive for most people, and cut it down to an hour and a half, not by speeding, but by properly driving corners.
It seems like all I hear anymore is people who hate their commute; for me, this is my time to relax (well, relax in the same way that CS is relaxing). There's nothing like driving through six-inches of snow, seeing a Grand Cherokee spun out on the side of the road, while you cruise by in your rear-wheel drive "sports car" (quotes to avoid technical debates as to Mustangs not actually being sports cars). The look on their face is priceless.
Mod me as a troll/flame, but auto racing can be every bit as much of a geek sport as bicycling, rock climbing, or even martial arts. Understanding that you need a few degrees more duration in your camshaft, or the reasons to go with a hypereutectic piston instead of a forged (or why the '86 5.0 HO motor is worse than the '85)... and that's just in building it. Then you get to learn how to finesse those ~2 tons of metal without killing yourself or others...
meh...
To them it's like game over on a console.
That's EXACTLY what came to mind when I read that. Imagine - you're steering this car through a little 3d raceway. The ability for abuse is mind boggling, but, what's worse, is it sort of removes the element of threat and leaves the "driver" in a more detached position. When you drive your own vehicle, your skin is on the line. When someone else drives your vehicle, they don't have that issue.
I could see some idiot putting the car on cruise control remotely (either through poor design or as a hack to the vehicle/controller) and getting up to go get a pepsi or a beer or something.... just not a good situation.
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Having one least-common-denominator vehicle for all of these purposes (e.g. the Suburban Assault Vehicle), is a poor use of resources - to use some tortured computer analogy, it is as if you burn a DVD-R with three words on it, every time you want to use a post-it.
While that sounds find in theory, the reality is different. Your assuming a few things that don't always hold true.
First, the person has the $$$ to have more than one vehicle, so he is able to choose which one he uses based on the activity about to be done.
Or, second, that the person that has the need once a week for the big vehicle has the ability to ALWAYS get the big vehicle when he/she needs it, without fail, and at a reasonable price.
What if all storage options, regardless of size, all cost about $20,000. You can buy only one. Would you buy the floppy sized one because it's more efficient when you need to just save a few words? Or would you buy the bigger one so that when you NEED to backup your entire family of documents you have the room to do it?
Under normal circumstances, I agree, driving the big trucks for just one or two people is a waste of resources. However, not everyone has the ability to have a vehicle for each of their needs. Now, if someone has a fuel efficient car, and the bug SUV, yet never drives the car because he gets off on the powertrip of the big bad truck, then that is the person to be targetted for wasting resources.
. 62,400 repetitions make one truth -- Brave New World, Aldous Huxley
In 1904, cars weren't practical, horses were the norm, and very few people had ever seen the aircraft that had flown less than a year ago. Steamships were the fast way to cross the ocean. I'd be careful about what you predict for this century. For life in 2100, a mix between a motorcycle and car seems pretty mundane.
--
Evan
"$30 for the One True Ring. $10 each additional ring!" -- JRR "Bob" Tolkien
Just to play devil's advocate here...yes, I'd say practically all cars do only have one driver. Special cases may include some driver training cars, but the second driver in there has somewhat limited controls.
The idea is that you have a normal car *and* one of these. Much like the Smart cars we have in Europe. I have to say I don't see the advantage. You're still going to get stuck in traffic. I do think they should install short range radio in all cars as standard though so that you can shout at the twats in front of you.
t ml
Rather than a big car and a small car I have a car and a motorcycle. Use the bike to commute, swish through traffic and use the car for carrying stuff and longer ranges.
A Solectria Sunrise would be a much better vehicle to be aiming at:
http://www.evuk.co.uk/hotwires/rawstuff/art24.h
Yeah... 1997... It can actually do 375 miles on a single charge.
Deleted
Some key benefits to the idea of letting one person drive a gaggle of cars are
- You can design the cars to densely tailgate each other to take advantage of slipstreaming. That buys you significant gains in gas mileage since most of a car's power at highway speeds is spent just moving air out of the way.
- Cars can move at much higher speeds since human reaction times are removed from the chain. Right now, if you're in a line 100 cars long, it takes at least 50 seconds from the time the first car in line moves before the 100th car gets moving. With this technology, when the first car moves, all the cars move. When the first car stops, all the cars stop.
- It allows for self-assembling trains. Fixed rail is well, fixed. Cars go wherever anyone wants to go when they want to go. By allowing one person to drive, and everyone else to follow, you'll have long strings of cars (just like you have train cars) that can peel off when they wish and can join when they wish. You get most of the efficiency of trains without having to coerce people into living in certain areas or travel to certain destinations.
This incarnation of Toyota's may not make it to market but, with tort reform, some variation of this tech is going to happen. The advantages are just too great for it not to happen.Obviously this car is not to bring your two kids anywhere.
From the Georgia DOT:
Metro Atlanta commuters collectively travel an estimated 112 million miles daily, with (AFAIR) a 50 mile round trip average. That's a guestimated 2.4 million commuters. 88% alone in their cars... that's over 2.1 million solo commuters.
That's hundreds of thousands of vehicles daily on each of the major interstates.
Imagine you replace 2 of the four to 7 lanes (depending on which of the interstates and at which part) with lanes for this vehicle... each current lane would be wide enough to handle more than one of these vehicles in width, so you could replace, for example, 2 lanes with three for this kind of vehicle.
Sound ridiculous? People use motorcycles, some places have motorcycle lanes. We have HOV lanes. Why would something like this be so far fetched?
And while I realize it might be funny to talk about being hacked or having bad reception, just because a car could be remotely controled doesn't mean is has to be.
By separating these vehicles from the rest of traffic, you are minimizing the danger.
And you would still have your precious SUV, big enough to carry eight passengers while towing a house, so that you could take your two toddlers to the supermarket.
Stupid sexy Flanders.
How many times have you been following someone somewhere and they instinctually drive through a yellow light and leave you at the light? If your 'pod' is blindly following someone by remote control how is it to know that the person driving the first 'pod' isnt paying attention to his trailing 'pod' and you get stuck running a red light and possibly flattened by a truck or something?
....move along....nothing to see here....
That said, an enclosed scooter like the BMW C1 makes much more sense than the four-wheeled PM because you can operate it in a narrow vehicle lane and park in a motorcycle space. With anti-lock brakes, roll cage, and harness, and a superfluous helmet required in some jurisdictions, its no rolling coffin. And you can buy it now.
Not only did you not RTFA, you didnt even RTFSummaryOnSlashdot. The driver will not be an arbitrary 'elsewhere', they will be in *ANOTHER PM*, most likely directly in front of you. Havent you ever been driving and though 'gee, ive been behind this same car for the last 6 hours, why cant they just pull me?' This is a concept already being tested in cargo transportation, where the lead truck in a convoy controls the entire train of vehicles behind it.
I liked Manhattan the couple of times I visited it. Traffic wasn't a huge problem because no one drives there; you take the subway or a taxi. There are loads of people on many sidewalks, yes, but you get used to it. The air quality isn't any worse than the suburban sprawl I currently live in (Phoenix). And it isn't known for terribly high crime either, at least in Manhattan itself.
The main problem with the place, however, is that the cost of living is astronomical. Every time some anti-sprawl person talks about how we need to live in a high-density city with public transit, I immediately think of Manhattan and Boston, and remember how there's no way I could afford to live in one of those places. There's a reason sprawl occurs: land is much cheaper in the suburbs, and people can afford to own their homes instead of just being renters.
The living space in high-density cities is also a problem. Unless you're a millionnaire, there's no way you could afford 2000+ s.f. of living space in a dense city. But in the suburbs anyone can afford a decent-sized house. Personally, I like having a garage with power tools, an extra room for my computer and electronics projects, and a back yard with a couple of trees. Dense urban living is only realistic for people who are single and don't spend much time at home.
I think a better 'alternate car' would have two seats. If I was looking for a 'commute only' car, I'd be thinking that there would probably be many times that I wanted give someone a lift to the airport, to a meeting across town, to 'do lunch' etc. The 2nd seat would also give me plenty of room for shopping, taking clothes to the cleaners, etc.
IMHO, a two-seat 'alternate car', smaller than today's 4-seat compacts, could find a market in the U.S. by providing something more than a motorcycle in less space/cost than a conventional car.
Both analogies ignore the obivous: firing up your high-powered workstation to type letters or running auto-cad once a month doesn't represent an increased safety threat to Bob with his new $499 budget PC from Best Buy. The substantial increase in SUVs and the super-sized "light trucks" (what an oxymoron!) in the 1990s now represents at least 40% of the vehicles on the road. It may a represent a "choice" for those who can affford them, but collectively it is a very selfish choich as it makes driving substantially more dangerous for those who can't afford them or are philosophically opposed to owning one.
Likewise you both ignore the environmental impact, and I don't mean the mediocre fuel economy and increased emissions, but rather how the trend is now necessitating the need for bigger parking areas, larger garages, and making our bleak, sprawling, car dependent "cities" more forboding and obscene than ever.
Don't get me wrong - I'm not against such vehicles for people who have a legitimate need for them, such as ranchers/farmers, or rural residents in areas of poor roads and steep terrain that have a legitimate need for 4 Wheel Drive. However as we all know most such vehicles, especially the recent luxury SUVs, are gold plated penises designed to show the world how "successful" and "cool" you really are. Engineering wise they are little more than your standard pickup truck with a fancy cab grafted on and thus extremely profitable (and overpriced) due to an irrational, gullible public that puts fashion and "keeping up with the Joneses" before such matters as practicality, sustainability, and personal safety.
For a family of four a mini-van or station wagon is a marginally better choice. The real choice, that we're so lacking in most of our cities, is the choice not to drive at all. Transportation costs are now the #2 expense for most individuals and families behind the need for housing, represent from 15% to 20% of income for outlays suchs as car payments, insurance, maintainance, taxes, and fuel.
Isn't it a little ridiculous to design an environment that forces people to own a car in order to fully function as a citizen? Unlike a house a automobile eventually full depreciates to nothing, much like a personal computer, though much more expensive considering that PCs are basically commodities these days. If you do the math you'll see that a typical family a four will spend as much or more on automotive ownerships costs over than mortgage payments in the 30 years it takes to payoff a house. And all of this so we can live in a bland, polluted, cookie cutter landscape with no sense of community or place.
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