Morgan Threewheeler

Resurrection of a classic; 1800cc Harley motor:



Morgan Threewheeler

Slow food, meet slow car

The slow car is a mobile office, limited to 25 mph. But why would you need to go faster when you're already in your office?

Narrow-track vehicles

Good article and video by GizMag about what they're calling "narrow-track vehicles": the combination of enclosed, 3- or 4-wheel vehicles with a narrow footprint for maneuverability, efficiency, and speed.

2030 Car concepts

Top car design studios entered the Youthmobile 2030 Design Challenge, creating concepts that customize your car based on your DNA, individual cars that link together in traffic, and competing with your car to gain control over the steering. Wild.

Kids imagine the future of transportation

A few selections from Good Magazine's Transportation Issue.



I think my favorites are the "traveling legs"; "think of a country you want to go, and just jump there":

The Problem of Cars

Jamais Cascio explores a bit of what makes cars so successful and alternative options struggle:

At the same time, the typical solutions offered in response -- remaking urban design, increased bus and rail use, increased walking and biking -- have significant drawbacks. The first is expensive and slow, and the latter two impose significant limitations to what one can accomplish over the course of the day. I sometimes think that calls for everyone to give up cars are sufficiently unrealistic that they may actually be counter-productive: if the only alternative under discussion is to completely rebuild our cities and make everybody walk to the bus stop, cars will remain firmly in place as the dominant transportation model.

And one idea for evolving transportation:

Normally, I'd just drive from home to the train. Plugging into the train is one of the times that the law requires that drivers give up control to the nav system; it's not that people can't maneuver the cars into the slots, but that careful human drivers are just a lot slower than navs. Getting several dozen cars into and out of train slots in a one-minute stop is a real trick. Apparently BART hired theme park designers who know just how to get people on and off roller coasters most efficiently, but the basics are the same with most platooning systems, whether on trains or freeways.

Volkswagen's 170 mpg car

Cockpit-style seating and roof; must feel like flying a jet!

Volkswagen's 170 mpg car | Frankfurt Auto Show 2009 - CNET Reviews

Rubber band powered cars

It can go 3 miles? That's a lot of potential energy stored up in those rubber bands.

via modernmechanix.

Alternative hauling

via L'art du chargement

Volvo streamliner

I couldn't help but notice the... training wheels.

Strange-car'n'bike

Peapod electric vehicle

This guy is pretty cute:



Introducing the Peapod(tm)

Toyota i-Real

The name belies its utterly conceptual status, but still, this is pretty wild.

That said, it's still much more feasible than the i-Unit concepts that preceded it:



Drive Slow: Toyota i-Real Concept "Car"

i-Unit concepts

Human-powered cars

Power From The People | Popular Science

Everyman's Folding Auto

From 1939, this folding car promises to make parking a problem of the past.

Paleo-Future: Everyman's Folding Auto (1939)

LA Auto Show concepts

The LA Auto Show recently held a contest to design motor sports vehicles for the year 2025. These were both racing and adventure vehicles, and the contestants came up with some pretty wild designs.

The winner was the Mazda 3-wheeled electric vehicle charged through its tires (and featuring hubless wheels, natch), though I have a special fondness for the Mitsubishi with Mecanum wheels.




Last year's winner was also interesting, a single-person pod designed by Volkswagen that also apparently requires special roads a la Minority Report.

Aptera's new site

The new Aptera website goes into more detail about the thinking behind the car, and seems much more consumer focused (read: "dumbed-down").

Toyota PIM

Cool 4-wheel single-person vehicle.
http://www.toyota.com/concept-vehicles/pm.html