The authors took a clean sheet of paper and sketched an alternative approach to car design that may seem mainstream today but was decidedly exotic when the book was published in 2010.
They proposed a car that is electrically driven, electronically controlled and cleverly designed to maximize space efficiency.
When the book first came out, I had a hard time visualizing their approach being implemented in my lifetime. it looked like one of those clever but hopelessly unrealistic thought experiments. However, when Automotive News — the ministry of industry groupthink — sees “promise” in self-driving cars, that suggests a paradigm shift may be in the making (e.g., Snyder, 2015).
Reinventing the Automobile covers a wide range of topics, including vehicle design, energy choices, charging infrastructure, and urban planning issues. The car designs are interesting, e.g., to reduce the amount of urban land devoted to parking, the pod-like cars fold up into a vertical position.
Even if one doesn’t agree with the authors’ specific ideas, their general approach is a refreshing change of pace from typical automotive design exercises, which pay little if any attention to how the car impacts the urban environment. Indeed, I would invite you to read this book and then imagine what an industry publication such as Automotive News would look like if it covered transportation with an equally broad purview as Reinventing the Automobile. Warning: Your head may explode.
Reinventing the Automobile: Personal Urban Mobility for the 21st Century
- William J. Mitchell, Christopher E. Borroni-Bird and Lawrence D. Burns; 2010
- The MIT Press, Cambridge, MA
“Have we reached the point where we now must seriously consider trading off the personal mobility and economic prosperity enabled by automobile transportation to mitigate its negative side-effects? Or can we take advantage of converging twenty-first-century technologies and fresh design approaches to diminish these side effects sufficiently while preserving and enhancing our freedom to move about and interact? This book includes the latter.” (p. 3)
“Structures, already lightened by only needing to support a modest propulsion system, can be on an even stricter diet if they do not have to provide all the traditional crash-resistant features. It may be possible to realize vehicle mass savings in excess of 20 percent if safety-related content can be avoided, which could translate into a fuel economy improvement of more than 10 percent.” (p. 24)
“Wheel motors, like all electric motors, can also act as generators: they can recover braking energy that would otherwise be lost and feed the current back into the battery (so-called regenerative braking). It should be possible to reduce or even eliminate the need for friction brakes, which will reduce the cost and unsprung mass penalty.” (p. 58-59)
OTHER REVIEWS:
The Telegraph | Forbes | Amazon | Goodreads
RE:SOURCES
- Snyder, Jesse; 2015. “Blazing a trail to self-driving cars.” Automotive News. Subscription required. Posted Oct. 12; accessed Oct. 12.
Concepts of personal mobility are, and have been changing for quite a while. A lot depends on your generation and the opportunities that were open to you. I’m a late Boomer that graduated high school in ’73. Mobility needs are based upon your specific residential situation. I valued and had the opportunity to buy a home relatively close to my workplace,however living in a big sprawling city meant that my commute consisted of a ten mile, 25-30 minute commute. That was still much quicker than taking public transportation. Many of my younger co workers bought nice houses that they could afford out in the exurbs. Their comute was over fifty miles, one way, and could take anywhere from one hour thirty minutes to twice that long if there was a significant traffic event. Several took the long distance mass transit that was available which resulted in a two hour one way commute.
My children’s generation seems to value their personal time over a long commute. Two have bought smaller (not cheaper!) homes in the city that reduce their local commute. My youngest also chooses to live and work as close as is possible. The pandemic brought about many changes, one of which was the option of working from home, for some people. This eliminated the commute entirely. The popular use of ride sharing services reduces the need to drive, or even own a car for many. My kids value living in close proximity to the serivices, activities, and entertainment they enjoy.
For many non automotive enthusiasts the option of driving less, or not at all is appealing. If society continues to evolve into a more local area oriented culture we will see more changes in our transportation needs and choices.
I still remain a died in wool auto enthusiast, but realize that changes are coming whether I like it or not.
Jose, your experience has a lot of similarities to mine. I’d agree that change is going to happen, but I also think that auto enthusiasts can impact it at least somewhat. To see what I mean, think about how much the average American passenger car’s roadworthiness has improved since the 1960s. Some of that was the advent of regulations, but the constant pounding that Detroit took from the buff magazines also played a role.
Looking into the future, I’m most skeptical of autonomous vehicles; they strike me as a typical high-tech effort that makes life more complicated — and expensive — than it needs to be.