A new Peoples' Car?
 

What the world needs is a new People's Car,one with 'lasting design',engineered for the 21st-Century,which will look 'modern' a million years from now.
My candidate ( with modifications ) is the Koenigsegg CCXR.

Lose the wide wheels/tires,taper the body and narrow the track as was done with the 1st-gen Insight,raise the trailing edge of the roofline even with the back of the cars body,and morph the sides into the roofline for a proper Kamm aft-body.
Make it out of stamped-steel,nothing exotic.
Pre-wire it for accessories but offer it 'naked',with 'options' added at the dealer or by owner themselves.
TDI,8-speed trans.
Each year the car gets cheaper,just like the Model-T Ford.Twenty years from now,it's selling at 1/3 the price.
Weight's not an issue when the engineers synchronize the traffic lights and abolish the left turn which makes synchronization impossible.

If we can't change the way people drive we can offer efficiency through what they drive.
Like they say," When you're driving alone,you're driving with bin Laden.":eek:

Trouble is, "the people" seem to want ever more weight, ever more hp, no end user serviceability, high replacement parts costs, and tons upon tons of gadgets and gimmicks glommed on. :mad:

...a fiber-carbon battery-hybrid version of the original Ferdinand Porsche "Volkswagen"?

Yeah, the wealthiest 25% of us get to choose the cars that the rest of us will be driving three to five years down the road. If new car buyers would stop flooding the market with low-priced cars in such good condition, then the sensible people of the world would make a larger portion of the buying decisions.

There are places in the world where you can buy simple cars with the same engines and sheet metal as they had 20 years ago. The second-gen Chevy S10 has been available in Brazil since 1994, and Ford sells pickups based on the '98 Fiesta all over the developing world.



If you can't change how people drive, then people will need highly aerodynamic cars with regenerative braking powerful enough to provide most of their ordinary braking needs, panic stops excluded.


The only shape that will look "modern" in thirty years is the streamlined body. It can be truncated within reason, if you need more interior space.

I'm currently looking at one of the three vans-with-windows from Peugeot/Ciitroen/Fiat - the Bipper/Nemo/Qubo.

On the basis of a people's car these seem perfect - cheap, big inside, practical, reasonably tough (courier companies take the van versions to Mars and back in terms of mileage) and economical.

Slow, but may be thats not a bad thing.

If you can't turn left, then won't you have to drive a block past your intended street, make a right, go down a block, make a right, go down a block, and make another right? This will take you back to your intended turn (had you been allowed to turn left), but you have now driven 4 extra blocks and made 3 extra turns, some of which you may have had to slow down or stop for. Also, you might have to stop and wait now at the original intersection if you happen to hit the light wrong. Is there some study that shows this is more efficient than allowing left turns? Seems like a lot of extra mileage, and I'm not sure people will put up with it. :confused:

I think there should be more round abouts. There's one in Branson, and it's a cool idea for a low traffic intersection. You turn right, circle around till you get where you need to go, then turn right again. Absolutely brilliant.

the people
 

Frank,yeah,I got a plan for that too,but I won't dare mention it at EcoModder for fear of getting booted off.
Very un-PC !

carbon-fiber
 

The exotics are just way too expensive.Steel is cheap,easy to form and bond and design for crumple.Tool and die-making is in the bag.
With the exception of the windshield,there is no reason why this car would cost any more than a Kia Rio or entry level Hyundai.
If the traffic engineers will time the traffic lights ( which is their duty to do ) and lose the left turns ( which can be legislated by any Chief of Police ),all cars will get double their City MPG with no change to the car whatsoever and the streamlining will take care of the Hwy.
My other recommendations cannot be mentioned here.

regen braking
 

If you can envision a driving environment where you don't apply your brakes 'til you arrive at your destination,the regenerative braking becomes superfluous and an unnecessary expense.