I’ve started to hate SUV, MUV and MPV. I’ve been thinking about how buses may be an ideal transportation, but in reality, it will probably not be feasible to have an entire transport system running on buses, right? Maybe a bit of rickshaws and mini-taxis too? And also compact private vehicles?
Lately, I’ve been interested in minivans, micro-vans and kei cars as the effective mode of transportation, at least for the present scenario. During my window shopping on YouTube, I’ve come across multiple smaller EV, like the ones from Honda or Dacia. I’ve also come across this van called Helixx, which is something that caught my eye.
I can’t think but fancy a vehicle that is modular and easily replaceable. You get to choose what parts to buy. Let’s say, you want a cheap mini-van, but all you can find is a mini pickup-truck. All you have to do is find one of these vehicles, and get their main frame for cheap, trade the un-needed pieces back, and behold, you get to make your van? It is also a really small car, and makes proper utility of space, so, wouldn’t it be cool if modular cars with standardized parts were a thing?
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I think a big part of the reason this doesn’t work ultimately comes down to safety. With a modular system, how do you crash-test your configuration? How do you know a certain combination of parts doesn’t have a fatal flaw? And I’m sure a lot of people would think “Well that’s my risk” but it’s not. That becomes the risk for everyone else on the road. And yes, I’m aware of all the risk giant trucks present, and these are issues present even with regulation. Imagine how much worse it would be if everyone could build their own from scratch. I’m not worried about myself or my own car on the road, but I’m absolutely worried about others. It would be so much worse if I had to vet the quality of everyone’s ‘unique’ builds on top of this. Safety should always be standardized.
But these are light-weight vehicles, made of composite plastic - perhaps, this could be improved by making the material hollow? They’re not like the Cybertruck. They’re not going to squash pedestrians like bugs. What’s even better, we could probably regulate the speed limit too? What’s even more amazing is that we are not just modularizing cars, we also get the ability to have swappable batteries, compatible between different vehicles?
The issue with your outlook (I think) is that you see my idea as a solution for where all cars get to be modular - totally not. I’m talking about an ideal world where policies have been put to action where cars will be on a decline, buses and trains are being turned into mainstream transportation, and perhaps there may be a few areas which are not viable for public transport, where vehicles will definitely be needed. Or you know what, people just want to rent a camper for a picnic, or a truck to move their stuff? That sort of future.
The existing auto industry would squash this as quickly and effectively as possible, we’d absolutely need a command economy to put something like this through.
reminds me of Edison Motors part selection process… they usually pick the most common parts available that have as much in common as possible with other electric equipment or vehicles. For example 12V automotive fuses are usually all the same for all vehicles, but expand that paradigm to cover as many components of the vehicle design as possible.
I think once you get down to the size of vehicles like this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R2oD1ZHNMFE then they become naturally modular/replaceable. At least in the same way that bikes are. I don’t think people really create “modular” bikes they are just naturally swappable. Of course standards are helpful, and I think there is a total lack of standards for golfcart sized enclosed vehicles.