We need a new type of car.

The title says it all, really. I've identified a gap in the motoring psyche that no manufacturer has successfully filled, at least here in Australia. Briefly, there is a problem with most cars on the market today. This is not about CO2, at least not directly - you see, modern cars are far too big and heavy.

Now I do admit, there are some seriously good advantages to this. Big, heavy cars these days are very well built, making them as comfortable to crash into a concrete pylon as laying down on a feather mattress. They also have a lot of space for passengers and luggage, and there's plenty of gadgets to entertain both driver and passenger. There is a place for these cars, yes. I like big, comfortable cars. But I also like small, nimble cars and it's here that manufacters have been forced, by consumers mind you, to be conservative. Even the tiniest hatchback has four seats (for mice, if you want actual humans you really do need a normally sized car, like a Focus). This obsession with seats got me thinking, why do we need them all?

Most of the time, you see, people are only driving themselves. Granted this is probably not the case with families and mum driving the kids to school and various extracurricular goodness, but by and large the commute is conducted solitary. So why do you need four seats? Much of the extra weight that cars carry these days is due to the size of the passenger cabin. If you could trim it down to one seat, with maybe a bit of a shelf for your briefcase, you lose nothing in the usefulness of the car for that particular purpose, and gain in many ways - lower cost of pruduction and of course less fuel are the obvious ones. The economics are fairly sound. You do lose some safety factors of course, but then on the commute you are not travelling at high speed most of the time, and if lots of people did this then collisions would be almost as safe as if everyone drove tanks. Why is the market not cryinge oute for this?

Well, with the theory in hand, let's have a look at some attempts over the last few years to create my vision of the perfect commuter's car.

This yellow electric car gets the concept just fine: a small car only for commutes, usually short distance. But where to begin. Today's car has to look good, and I'm afraid it's total failure for this one. Moreover, I really don't think three wheels is the way of the future. Stability is compromised.

Mmm, this looks nice, but I think that cabin would feel rather a lot like a coffin. Plus we're back to three wheels again. What was the allure of that to begin with? And of course there are any number of similar concepts.

Ah, now that's more like it. The Carver solves the stability issues of 3 wheels by tilting, which is very cool, but the complex engineering involved also makes it quite expensive. Why not just add a fourth wheel? Just a thought ...

VW developed the idea quite a ways in a 2002 concept car (right), and it really showed some of the advantages: 290kg weight would have made it insanely efficient. Unfortunately it was given a 1 cylinder diesel engine with no power so it was never going to go mainstream, and of course it was extremely ugly. I say again, for mass market appeal it has to look good and have a decent engine. 50 kW would get a 500 kg car going quite nicely, potentially as fast as 0-100 in 8 seconds which is right in the sweet spot for a nicely powered family car.

Fortunately for this piece, VW have recently had another go, and I like the look of this version a lot better. Firstly the looks are much improved. They haven't gone for a noisy, rough, stinking pollutin' diesel engine either: this is an electric car as you might have guessed. This makes it short range only but you can't have everything I suppose. At the moment it's just a concept but VW is working hard to get something like it into production in th near future. It probably won't be as nice as the concept, purely for price point reasons of course, but they will be putting something small and electric on the market in the next few years. I do believe there is a market for something this size with a small petrol engine though.

Ah, now, you see, three wheels doesn't cut it. Got that? Doesn't matter if they do tilt in a cool way. The centre of gravity is just too high. Build a proper chassis please, and put away the childish tilting. This is 2011, flying cars are only 4 years away and we have barely got the car safe and efficient for road travel, never mind flying. Go design a new hatchback or something.

Now that we've seen some of the ideas the motoring world has produced, here's my idea:
4 wheels, each driven by its own electric motor. A small petrol engine or gas turbine at the back for range extension, with a good sized fuel tank; this drives an alternator which feeds power to a small bank of batteries and the wheels. The batteries are kept at a constant charge of no less than 50%, thus extending the lifespan of these expensive components. When braking and hill descending the batteries are allowed to charge to maximum extent. All electrical motors and alternator and batteries are water cooled to make them lighter and more efficient. Chassis should be an aluminium monocoque or aluminium/composite. Finally the passenger cabin should have one chair, for larger versions perhaps two. All of this would mave for an efficient, light, relatively fast little car. Only one obstacle remains: cost. I suggest that road tax for single seater or dual seater vehivles be lowered. That would help with the barriers of entry and get more people into them in the first place.