Revealed: Mega City One's top e-car - according to Peugeot

This apparently is what we may all be driving in the Mega Cities of tomorrow if Peugeot's crystal ball is on the money. Revealed as a 1:1 scale model at the Shanghai Motor Show, the Peugeot RD Concept is the winner of a design competition by the French car maker to "imagine the Peugeot in the Worldwide Megalopolis of tomorrow …

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah, yeah, yeah...

I've been reading and viewing about new and 'imminent' electric cars since I was a lad - and that's over 60 years. Year after year after year, we've seen new design after new design all set to hit the market. So far they've mainly been pure vapourware, and the tiny few that ever actually hit the market were aimed at people to whom money was clearly no object.

I'll believe in e-cars when I see them in my local dealers with a spec that makes sense at a price the ordinary man in the street can afford.

Meanwhile - I'm not holding my breath...

[Steven Hunter]

Bullshit

15,000 credits? Are they mad? My last car was a 2019 Mead Spinner and it only cost me 10k!

Mine's the one with the little origami animals in the pockets.

[Mick Stranahan]

so that is what happens

when a Dyson ball vacuum and a Tron light cycle get jiggy.

[Francis Boyle]

Ingenious system of articulation

That'll be a hinge, then.

Oh, and I like it the way a one-person electric scooter is inflated to the size of a Hummer. It'll do wonders for urban congestion, that.

Suddenly the Segway is starting to look like a not bad idea after all.

[O]

Silly concept. But ....

... aside from Mitsubishi, Subaru and Toyota, Peugoet had by far the most interesting and numerous electric / hybrid car (and scooter) concepts at the Geneva Motor Show.

They're putting the rest of the European industry to shame.

[Natalie Gritpants]

So which end is the front?

Is it a Bond Bug or a Bubble car?

[Anonymous Coward]

Presumably...

...side impact tests will be a thing of the past in the future.

And rain. And gravel.

Is there some requirement for design competitions to choose as winners the most utterly ludicrous and impractical option?

The bit about it being useful for diving through city traffic is kind of rich too - as far as I'm aware, they make a thing called a "motorcycle" right now, and if you get caught roaring around slicing through city traffic with it, the authorities take a somewhat dim view...

[Wokstation]

Oui!

Je suis la loi!

[Anonymous Coward]

Looks fairly good but...

It's made by the french, so it will be on strike whenever you want to actually drive it. That is, if they can get their workers to stop standing around and actually build some.

[Lukin Brewer]

It looks nothing like a Lawmaster.

They're more square and blocky. If anything, it looks more like one of the lightcycles from Tron. Or perhaps one of the bikes that Steve Bisley drew when he was artist on ABC Warriors.

[Frank]

Not Obvious at First

It took me a while but I figured out that the trailing arm carries the rear wheel. It needs the mud/spray guard to be much lower I'd say. If that trailing arm has an adjustable position about it's main joint, that could give you a variable wheelbase - short for low speed around town maneuverability and ease of parking- long for high speed stability. Is this what it does?

[graeme leggett]

Mega City?

more Japanese mecha than Mega - Ireckon someone's watched Akira once too often

[Tom Paine]

Judge Dredd doesn't pull you over.

"...Hi-Ex!" *BOOOM!* Exit the flaming wreckage of another infringing Mopad over the exit rail, on 2-mile drop inward-bounder heading for the Undercity...

...the Squaax know what I'm talking about, dammit!

Mine's the one with the dog-eared notepad of missing back-issues in the pocket and the Nicolai Dante "Too Cool To Kill" badge on the lapel...

[Tim Hale]

My challenge...

My challenge to the concept car designers is simple: Make it or shut-up.

I am so tired of 'this is what our cars of the future may look like!' Yeah, but they probably won't and even if they do, they don't look even remotely like that now and there isn't any sign of that changing in the near future.

Especially Saab; if I see one more 'hint of future design' while all the current cars look like some partially sighted person's gone crazy with a Halfords gift voucher...

[Brian Miller]

Bicycles -- real innovation of the future

I must agree with John, the electric cars are simply pathetic. There has been lots of innovation in bicycles, but its not cool to smell bad and have messy hair.

[vincent himpe]

what is front and back ?

i had a hard time figuring out that it is two weels in front ,one in back... normally you show front views and not only back views ....

besides , it looks like you have to be a controtionist to get in and out of this thing.

I'd prefer to have the hoverchairs from the wall-e movie ...

[Pete James]

@ David Wiernicki and the rest

Look, it's a styling comp. They let the kids have some fun with the magic markers and a brief to encourage them to think a bit wacky. So stop fretting about crumple zones or anything to do with real life. It's like some high fashion show, the stuff looks very odd but elements eventually filter down after everyone has sobered up into High Street clothes. If you're going to start droning on about safety features you're completely missing the bloody point.

Anyway, David Wiernicki, roaring through traffic - which bikers call filtering and knowing the appalling ability of road users to gauge speed will equate to 15MPH to you while you sit in a queue - is in the UK at least perfectly legal. It's in the Highway Code (circa P28, go buy a copy, sounds like you could do with mugging up on your roadcraft) and several Police Authorities publish guides on how to do it. I'm more than aware that motorists hate it because it's someone getting to their destination before you, but don't say that 'Authorities take a somewhat dim view' when there is legal precident on this showing the exact opposite and the 'Authorities' actively encourage it. Only other vehicles make filtering remotely dangerous, with poor lane discipline and not observing a safe distance between the vehicle in front, including at rest when you should always be able to view the rear wheels of whoever is ahead of you.

[thomas k.]

already available, sort of

Looks a little like the Bombardier Cam-Am Spyder 3-wheel motorcycle, except for the 'saloon' enclosesure. US$15,000-17,000, depending on manual or semi-automatic transmission. Registered as a motorcycle by DMV but only requires a normal auto license to operate, at least here in California. There's a couple in the town where I live and they are awesome-looking - the pictures don't do them justice.

http://nexus404.com/Blog/2007/03/03/canam-spyder/

[Anonymous Coward]

Lets face it...

the first practical leccy car is gonna be (is?) an electric (maybe hybrid to begin with?) smart car. It will be bought by rich middle class families who currently use smarts as their second car.

[Anonymous Coward]

Butt Ugly (was Yeah, yeah, yeah... )

John Posted Thursday 23rd April 2009 17:03 GMT

.....

" I'll believe in e-cars when I see them in my local dealers with a spec that makes sense at a price the ordinary man in the street can afford."

...and isn't butt ugly. Wasn't until the second page I was even sure which end was the front.

" Meanwhile - I'm not holding my breath..."

Me neither. It's hard to laugh while holding my breath.

[Heff]

Urban solution!

Not bikes and scooters then, as in other dense urban populations that have had to solve this problem (see india, china, anywhere with large populations and low incomes) or mass transit systems (see entire western hemisphere)

instead... its... an electric trike. GJ, guys. GJ. high fives. and not a small, practical one, either. its a giant fucker, the kind of thing that screams "great wind resistance" and "90% of weight made of batteries to generate enough charge to power the locomotion of the weight of all those batteries" (bad sentence, but you get the drift)

Paris. Boobies. etc.

[Anonymous Coward]

One part Akira, two parts Bondi iMac

still, at least it's not as sinfully ugly as the cars Peugeot considers worth putting on today's streets.

[Tanuki]

Look for infra-pink lizard emblem on the neutrino cowling.

Must confess, I'll wait until Lazlar Lyricon comes up with a custom job. I mean, if you're out by the Axel Nebula, going flat out and some thing like that just strolls past you - star drive hardly ticking over - that would be just incredible. - until when, ten seconds later it smashes straight into the third moon of Jaglan Beta - or, more likely, an inconveniently-parked Nissan Micra on Redditch high-street, with a 'disabled' badge in the rear window.

[Seán]

Prog 1631

Oh holy shit I remember buying issue 1 as a bairn for 6p or 3p of course the Kaiser had stolen the word for beetroot so we had to call it volgan cabbage...

[Hate2Register]

It might fit my 3 year old...

But I can't see a space big enough for me. Maybe it was designed for smurfs?

[Anonymous Coward]

Can it turn corners?

None of the wheels seem to be able to turn -- perhaps Mega City One will have just one long straight street?

[Warhelmet]

Electric Milk Float

@John - practical electric vehicle or not? And some of them have three wheels.

[storng.bare.durid]

Lame

So it's the size of one of those swatch cars or slightly bigger and it can only carry one person?

The amount of gear I carry in my car already makes this this job impractical.

Thumbs down.

[Mike Groombridge]

@Tanuki

looks like a fish , moves like a fish, steers like a cow

I love that quote what's with all the hitch hikers quotes recently or am just noticing it more as i have all the radio plays on the computer now.

as for the car bike thing very stylish not very pratical where's my boot for the shopping.

[Simon B]

It has THREE wheels and ONE seat, it's a TRIKE! not a car ffs!

e-car my arse, it has 3 wheels and 1 seat, it's an e-trike!!!!!

[jai]

OMFG i want!!!

cannot adequately put into words how much i want to drive that thing

it's awesome

however, living in the UK, i'm concerned that when it rains here, it is very rarely vertical - even a small bit of wind and you're gonna end up wet driving that

still - by the time this goes into production, global warming will have evapourated the seas and chances of rain will be negligable

[Anonymous Coward]

Dredd rides alone.

So where's the merit? I'll admit that it looks kindof cool but does that central hinge really offer anything at all? Would adjusting the angle while driving not tilt the driver? It certainly looks that way.

It's bulky, has no passenger space, no side-impact protection, no luggage space, no weather proofing etc.. You can't even lock the doors! And what's this about a "silent environment"? It has no doors!

I think it's safely beaten on every front by Smart.

[Stevie]

Bah!

Where's the seat for all the totty this will pull for you? What's the point in driving something the silver-foil bikini-clad birds of the future can't be given a lift home from the puborama?

[Anonymous Coward]

@Pete James

I probably should have specified that I'm in the US, and it's very, very rare for motorcyclists to 'filter' here, at least in my experience. Every once in a while you see some crazy bastards go rocketing down the middle of two lanes of stopped freeway traffic at about 75mph, jacked up on their rear wheels, and I'm pretty sure the ol' authorities will take a dim view of THAT wherever you are.

At any rate, if you make the assumption that most people will be driving motorcycle-like-things rather than cars, the whole thing falls apart, and you end up with traffic like they have in India. Not terribly efficient. Motorcycles only help getting through loads of traffic if the vast majority of the traffic is cages^H^H^H^H^Hcars.

[WinHatter]

Whiny Blighty

Well, it is said that we may be driving that in mega cities, where living outside might not be an option because the air will be unbreathable thanks to good old cars. One thing for sure, given the state of the roads in the UK, the chances to see those leccy thingies over here are quite remote.

And if you are about to complain about the design go full tilt, because the tyres won't remain glossy, the rims will gather dust, the rims are open on the inside meaning you can't even carry your cat as it might be centrifuged and expelled at high velocity in the cabin, there is no footrest and unless you are wearing sleepers with felt soles the foot place and the front bubble will be ruined in no time, there is no room for the oversized bottoms we'll have in a few years time.

Here is a hint Formula ones can be trashed for the exact same reasons.