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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!"
(man driving a vintage Excursion hits bump in road) "Damn, what was that!"
(kid in the back seat) "Dad, I think that you just ran over the last two PMs in that row of 10 that just passed us.
It looks neat, but I get the impression that it's a coffin with a glass top held up at an angle.
What's the color ofThe grass is only greener, if you don't take care of your own lawn.
The last thing I need is for someone else in the car to tell me how to drive, and then demand that I "hand over" control.
Sheesh.
1337dR1V3r: i h8 this commute
70y074d00d: ya it sux0rz
1337dR1V3r: too long
1337dR1V3r: i got a big ppt prez to give to 54L3z in 30 min
70y074d00d: haha 54L3z l4m3rz sux
70y074d00d: 4cc0un71nG rulez
1337dR1V3r: omfg lag
70y074d00d: i no
70y074d00d: im slow too
70y074d00d: net sux 2day
70y074d00d: dr1v3r
70y074d00d: j00 there
70y074d00d: hello
*** 1337dR1V3r has left channel
70y074d00d: oh fuX0r
*** 70y074d00d has left channel
Obliteracy: Words with explosions
Anyone remember that old joke that was floating around the Internet, what would happen if the car industry followed the growth of computers? I think that fear has just been realized. Thanks Toyota!
Hmmm.
Wireless networking and remote administration enabled? I think wardriving just gained a whole new meaning.
_____
Thank you.
I had one of these when I was a kid! Except control wasn't wireless, it was manual. Oh yeah...and we called it a "stroller."
Steve Urkel
...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
The fundamental problem with the car-centric society of my homeland is: Nearly pessimum resource utilization at every step of the way.
First, I assume for the moment that we are not going to undo fifty years of urban planning overnight, and that private cars (or car-like transporters) are going to be a sine qua non for the time being.
Every day, a commuter needs to get himself and his briefcase from domicile to place-of-employ. Once a week, the entire family unit wants to travel together to Funfunparkland. Once a month you need to carry a SUV-full of groceries home from the Megalomart.
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.
I think something like the Toyota PM would be more readily accepted by commuters if there were in place a more economically feasible way to acquire a larger vehicle for ad-hoc short-term missions. Something like, but not exactly like, the current rental market.
When I lived in Mountain View, CA - there was "Rent A Heap, Cheap" that had - well - cheap heaps of car ... They would rent you a mid-80s
station wagon for something like 25 bucks a day, unlimited mileage (or
nearly unlimited) including tax and insurance. Commuting via
motorcycle, I was easily able to save enough in operating-cost,
fixed cost, and depreciation to rent the wagon for those
once-in-a-while times when having something bigger than a motorcycle
was needed.
The saddest part with Toyota's gadget: It appears too much a toy, and they will have terrible image problems. The /. collective-consciousnless will call it 'gay'. (Not to mention the
risks involved with someone 0wn3ring your car and driving you off a
cliff!)
How does the Slashdot Effect happen given that no slashdotters ever RTFA?
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.
Does it turn into a cannoli?
"I don't need a compass to tell me which way the wind shines." - Mr. Furious, Mystery Men
> 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!
All that remains is to hook these units together and run them on fixed guideways. Let's see - need a new word for that - how about..... "Train". Yeah, that sounds funky and new!
sPh
Another job that can be done from home, taxi driver.
Never thought i'd see the day...
At least cabbies can stop showeri.... wait a minute..
So how do I get my two toddlers to the grocery store?
What breakfast food does this most resemble: Hummer IV meets PM?
What about poor wireless reception or active radio jamming?
To start it, do you pull it back in your driveway until the spring catches?
[
Photoshop this Toyota PM. Difficulty: no baby strollers.
More music, fewer hits
- 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.
When people start driving cars that look like a giant cellphone.
So you have NEVER ridden as a passenger in someone elses car?!?!?
So, if I crash someone's car driving it remotely, am I liable? Does my insurance go up? Will hackers be the wireless car thieves of the future?
It Is the Nature of Information to Transgress Artificial Boundaries
And what do you do when people mistake you for a giant Aibo?
Have you PM mount their car and give the chassis a little dry-hump?
That said, the autopilot mode I like. Though it would be better if it could drive autonomously, rather than surrendering control to someone else (who's as likely to fall asleep at the wheel as I am). Course, the networking would have to be designed so that it was proof against some random attack. Giving up control of my car to someone else is one thing, having him TAKE control against my will is "right out".
And it changes colours to indicate what is going on inside! I wonder what colour it turns if you're making out?
"I do not agree with what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it"
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!
And what else seats only one person, reclines, and is driven by someone else? Why, you guessed it... it's the new joint venture between Toyota and Apple... the iStroller.
Want to improve your Karma? Instead of "Post Anonymously", try the "Post Humously" option.
Old-School
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?
Judging from the horrific comments that everyone on /. has about this new product, and how right the /. community has been about products.. (ipod mini comes to mind). This will make Toyota billions!
Umm. Ever hear of a "taxi"?
The grass is only greener, if you don't take care of your own lawn.
It looks like an egg on wheels!
Phone rings:
It's Mindy, Mork want's his car back!
Obama's legacy: (N)othing (S)ecure (A)nywhere and (T)error (S)imulation (A)dministration
Good thing it's a single seater!
The Lohner-Porsche Electric Car, unveiled in 1900 at the Paris Expo, was an electric car with a motors-in-the-hubs design. 1900!
Napster-to-go says "Fill and refill your compatible MP3 player", which is a lie. It's not MP3. It's WMA with DRM.
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. --
for Post Mortem, cuz this thing will be dead on arrival
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?
For those looking for a working link, try here or here.
Life is the leading cause of death in America.
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.
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Since HSW is grinding to a halt and no longer serving up images, you can see pics of the rolling coffin and more info from Toyota here.
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.
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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All your car are belong to us?
Let's go Hurricanes!!! 2006 Stanley Cup Champions!!!
I guess I tend to lean more toward having a larger vehicle these days because I know someone who a year ago would be dead if they were not driving the large pickup truck they were in...when someone hit them head on at 65mph. Luckily they only nearly died, and can barely walk today.
As long as all of the large vehicles are still popular, a tiny thing like that simply would not sell.
- Leave you exposed to the elements
- Limited carrying capacity
- In town, anything I can do on a motorcycle, I can do on a bicycle, cheaper, and usually just as fast.
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.You can actually see the controls.
Never attribute to malice that which can be explained by mere idiocy.
A lot of people's observations seem to be based on the assumption that the PM was designed for the American car driver in mind. Just based on its function and design, this seems to be a vehicle designed for high density areas (i.e. Asian metropolitans) where space is a premium and large vehicles like SUVs are non-existent to smash up the PM. You take any idea out of its context and it will sound foolish.
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.
Maybe people will start driving a bit more carefully if this is the case. ABS, seatbelts, airbags - I bet the one thing that'd improve road safety more than any of those is a 6-inch spike sticking out the steering wheel towards the driver!
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It has an output of 13 kw, and runs for 1 hour, so you get 13khw. On my electric bill, 1 kwh costs me $0.1206, so 60 miles costs me $1.56. To make things fair, let's look at gas prices before the recent upswing, say $1.60/gal. Say you have a fairly efficient car, 30mpg. 60 miles at 30mpg = $3.20, more than double. Even more in the case of an upswing like this one (comes to nearly $4 for 60 miles in my area).
Not to mention the warm, fuzzy feeling of knowing that you aren't polluting as much (provided your electricity is through someone like these guys).
I'm sure there are special case maintenance issues with an electric car over a gas powered one, but I would assume that they balance out. But I'm sure someone will point out that I'm wrong. Regardless, the point is that most people can afford one of these. And they are cheaper to run than what most people use for their commute car today.
There is a reason for everything. Sometimes that reason just sucks.
Motorcycles.
All the clothing is completely waterproof these days, thank you Gore.
Backpacks, tank bags, tail packs, panniers, top boxes. You might be surprised just how much crap you can lug around on a motorbike.
They occasionally run a "Commuter Race", a man vs car vs tube vs bicycle vs motorcyle race between 2 points in London. The motorcycle wins every time and it's not just marginally quicker, it's 50% -> 100+% faster than all of the rest.
Deleted
Electric motors = continuously variable transmission = continuous maximum torque at any speed.
Drive by wire + separately-powered wheels = computer-controlled stability-control on acceleration, braking, turning, etc.
Maximum control under all conditions, incredible ridiculous electric acceleration, and handling that's as impressive as hell.
The only advantage gasoline engines have is a fuel with much higher energy density (range) than batteries provide-- if you want pure performance, electric will own internal combustion every time.
"We have to go forth and crush every world view that doesn't believe in tolerance and free speech." - David Brin
According to the EPA (search for the 2002 BTS report), the average vehicle used for commuting to work contain 1.14 occupants. In other words, 86% of the cars on the road are carrying only the driver.
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.
Anybody else think that thing looks like an i-Mac on wheels?
--
As a matter of fact, I am a lawyer. But I play an actor on TV.
That I can now offshore my driving?
Looks a lot like the Corbin Sparrow, which was billed as an enclosed motorcycle rather than a single-seater car,
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