Car Sharing - where to buy electric toothbrush

Today, executives in the domestic auto industry are working hard for the company's survival.
But within the R & D department, the idea of employees is changing in a new direction.
Can they re-invent cars in a world of congestion, urbanization, climate and energy problems?
An idea known as "mobile on demand" is based on the premise that future city drivers will buy services, not products.
The reason is: more cars will not be tolerated in tomorrow's city.
Think about the idea GM came up.
Researchers sponsored by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
This is a lightweight stackable (1,000 pounds)
An electric car that can check out from a roadside luggage rack, like a luggage cart at the airport, later returned to any luggage rack around the city.
Prototype of MIT city car (a bubble-
Two cars 55 miles per hour)
Only 8 feet long, folded to half size, easy to stack.
Traditional parking spaces can accommodate four stacked cars.
The key to this concept is the robot wheel of the car.
Each of the four wheels contains an electric motor, drive train, suspension, and steering and braking mechanism.
The rest is a simple, lightweight body designed around the occupant safety cage.
Unlike most electric cars, it doesn't need huge batteries.
Instead, whenever the car is stacked, it charges like an electric toothbrush.
In order to drive a car, the consumer swipes the card, removes a car from the luggage rack, and then stores it on another luggage rack in town after it is completed.
Charge: about $1 per mile.
Shared cars will cut spending on vehicles and parking lots around the world.
The ubiquitous shelves will solve the "last mile" problem to and from public transport stations.
More people who use buses and trains will drive their cars off the road.
Zipcar, a company that provides shared rental services in 13 cities, said that each car would replace the other 15.
It is worth noting that only 13% of the world's population owns cars.
This is usually good news for global automakers;
There is a huge potential demand.
But many cities are already very crowded or polluted, or both, and they are trying to limit their vehicles.
Singapore has a $5,000 tax on car stickers.
In Tokyo, a parking space is up to $1,500 a month.
In London, drivers must pay $16 a day for certain parts of the city.
"Could this turn into a sport that says cars are dangerous and should not be sold?
Lawrence D, GM's strategist. Burns.
Many industry executives have expressed concern about him.
Ford Motor executive chairman William C said: "As a planet, we have moved from rural society to urban society for about two generations . "Ford Jr. , great-
Grandson of company founder Henry Ford
"If we are going to be relevant to the lives of our customers in the next 20 to 40 years, we need to continue to reshape ourselves.
"In fact, most of the 2007 people in the world live in urban areas for the first time, which is 6 billion.
By 2025, 61% of the world's population will live in cities of 1 million or more.
The Institute of Urban Times predicts 27cities"--
More than 10 million people-by 2015.
18 of them will be in Asia, the report said.
In response to this challenge, automakers are imagining a variety of hightech solutions.
GM's Burns envisioned a world where autonomous electric cars talk to each other to avoid collisions.
These lightweight self-allocated times and paths
The guide car will smoothly pass through the crowded intersection without all stops --and-
This will block roads and reduce fuel efficiency.
Many enabling technologies such as adaptive cruise control and lane departure warning systems already exist.
Or imagine going to work with a light computer.
Take the podcar on the elevated highway and extend to every block of the city. Bill N.
Reinert, national manager of Toyota Advanced Technology Group, suggested that,
Demand, personal rapid transit system may be as effective as the self-transit system and will not be more expensive than the self-transit systemguided cars.
Passengers will book a car on the phone and the car will wait at a nearby station (
Instead of the opposite way).
Some ideas are closer to results.
Last year, BMW chief executive Norbert Reithofer assigned a group of employees to work at a skunk factory to develop a new car for the big city ---
Even under a new brand.
What BMW sells in a crowded city has been entangled for some time.
In 2001, it introduces C1, a closed scooter with safety features and seat belts similar to cars.
Commuting is OK but not as fun as a motorcycle.
BMW killed C1 after selling only 33,700 cars.
BMW's board member in charge of brand development and head of the mega-city project, fridrishi achina, insists that C1 is ten years ahead of its time.
"I still believe in two people.
Wheeler or three.
"Wheeler can be a solution for the future," he said . ".
But the first concept of this project is undoubtedly four. Wheeler: one plug
Electric Mini powered by lithiumion battery.
BMW tested 500 vehicles in California, New York and New Jersey.
Eichiner said the tests will provide important feedback for BMW's next mega-city car, which will be available early next decade.
Sidebar: Tour the town of the future in Bill Ford's crystal ball, not everyone has a car, but anyone with a credit card can use a mobile device.
"It's a lot more democratic," Ford said . " He admits there are many "gray areas" that need to be addressed.
"It fits perfectly with my greatness.
Grandpa's vision
"Toyota is one of the companies that test the concept of sharing --
Use vehicles through programs with the University of California, Irvine.
The idea behind the Zevnet plan is that electric cars that employees drive to work in the morning do not have to be idle all day;
They can be used together.
Company business workers between the ages of 9 and 5, and then return in time on the way to and from work, for a full fee. Car-
Shared services like Zipcar have been carried out on a small scale in places like Boston, New York and Washington, D. C. C.
About $9 an hour, a subscriber rented a car in his neighbor and when he finished it would go back to the same place.
The Massachusetts Institute of Technology and General Motors hope to go further withway sharing.
The driver will check a car in one place and send it back to another. (
For example, you can take the subway to the supermarket and take your groceries home by car. )
20,000 shared bicycles in Paris have also been a great success. Shared-
There are many challenges in using the system, the most important of which is to balance the supply and demand of vehicles at each location.
MIT researchers believe that by tracking vehicle usage patterns, they will eventually be able to create algorithms that can accurately predict vehicle demand per block.
The economy is really tricky.
The MIT business model is based on a similar concept of sharing
It is also using a foldable electric scooter.
The Massachusetts Institute of Technology says sym, a Taiwanese manufacturer of the motorcycle, can be mass-produced.
Produced in a year or two. (
To make the city car of MIT work, GM will take five to ten years. )
Through an analysis of several cities, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology has concluded that every 1,000 people need a scooter.
In a city of 4 million people, there are 4,000 motorcycles.
Each person rides ten times a day (
Compared to two or three times a day for most scooters). That's 14.
6 million times a year.
$1, $14 per trip.
Income is 6 million.
Increase revenue from membership fees and advertising, and then subtract the cost of setting up charging stations and operating expenses, such a system may break even in the first year.
The Massachusetts Institute of Technology boldly predicted that the profit margin would reach about 30%.
Sharing, of course.
The use of an electric vehicle system is only effective if the infrastructure is in place.
"It's not a trivial matter," admitted William Mitchell, a professor in charge of the MIT Smart City project.
"But we learned from the Internet that you can deploy it step by step.
You don't need to have a huge infrastructure to get it to work.
It's not like turning to the hydrogen economy.
"So his research team will start small studies with folding scooters on the campus of MIT.
These vehicles should be in place within two years.
For this reason, shared city cars will not replace private cars or public transport.
Moreover, the luxury car market will always exist.
"The horse did not leave when the horse-free carriage replaced the horse," Mitchell said . ".
But if it becomes convenient to share cars, they will be used, he said.
"Even the ceo will take a taxi from time to time.