Futuristic MIT City Car is green, stackable, and sharable

William Atkins
Sunday, 09 March 2008 02:53

Science - Energy

A full-sized model has yet to be built, but a small prototype version has been constructed. The City Car is centered [on] its wheels, which are called 'Wheel Robots' by the Media Lab team. They allow the vehicle to spin 360 degrees for ease of motion and parking. [corrected per reader comment]

In fact, Ryan Chin, who is the project coordinator for the Smart Cities, Media Lab project, says, “For starters, there is no engine, at least in the traditional sense. The power comes from devices called Wheel Robots, which are self-contained, digitally controlled robotic wheels, complete with their own suspension and very simple connections to the car body.” [MIT Media Lab]

Please go to MIT’s Media Lab website http://cities.media.mit.edu/courses/2006frames-citycar.pdf that discusses the City Car and gives images of the evolution and present look of the futuristic vehicle.

Eventually, the designers see their system being adapted to various cities.

Crowded cities in small areas, such as Boston, Massachusett,s would have City Cars that have smaller batteries and ranges than those in spread out cities such as Los Angeles, California, and Houston, Texas, which would need longer ranges and bigger batteries to accommodate longer driving times and higher speeds on interstates.

Christopher Borroni-Bird, director of the Advanced Technology Vehicle Concepts at U.S. automaker General Motors Corporation, is the corporate consultant for the MIT project.

Borroni-Bird states, "What we have is a very intriguing concept. It is certainly a very promising idea, but I don't want to say it is ready for production ... there's still a lot of work yet to take it from concept to production." [MIT Media Lab]