Swappable body vehicles (SBV) exist. Some are used for deliveries (e.g., Boxbot), whereby a smart chassis routes boxes around the city. However, there are no current global or regional standards for such delivery skates, which could be useful for more than just automated deliveries:

- Rental skates for privately owned car bodies, that come to your garage and automatically attach to your car's body whenever you need to drive could be economically more efficient than owning entire car.

- Rental skates that work like boats for crossing bodies of water, instead of bridges could be cheaper than building bridges.

According to the Bard, it is expected that standards for delivery skates will be finalized within the next few years by organizations like GALE, CEN and NIST, and once these standards are in place, it is likely that we will see a rapid growth in the adoption of delivery skates in cities around the world.

However, the entire standardization effort seems to be focused solely on the autonomous vehicles, which might not be sufficiently broad, to encompass the broader usability of those standards for car ownership (to make owning a car body without chassis be a viable option for a personal solution to transportation).

City Skates Standard would be the standard encompass these considerations, to broader applications of skates, outside the domain of just autonomous vehicles.

Envision a future where rental skates seamlessly attach to privately owned car bodies, and you can drive them non-autonomously. This would reduce the need for owning an entire vehicle, ensuring economic efficiency while reducing the environmental impact of excessive car production.
-- Mindey, Nov 04 2023

Um. Okay. I get it.

...so everything becomes a trailer rather than an autonomous craft?

...and gets picked up by delivery?

no

...

no.
-- 2 fries shy of a happy meal, Nov 04 2023


// ...so everything becomes a trailer rather than an autonomous craft?

No, you could also buy the chassis (instead of renting), and keep it always attached to your vehicle, this way, you could have your autonomous craft.
-- Mindey, Nov 04 2023


So ... like a shipping container, but smaller and more comfortable, for private passenger transport?
-- pertinax, Nov 04 2023


I see no reason why high-end luxury self-sufficient apartments should not be built into standard shipping containers. And then routed through the usual channels for world wide travel.

In fact has this not been proposed on here already?

The other international standard is the pallet. Cramped, yes, but I think a one-person seating pod should be able to fit nicely onto a standard shipping pallet, and then be transported through the usual channels.

I knew a person who used a pallet to move house to a different country, the shipping company delivered a pallet and a large self-assembly cardboard box which fitted within the loading dimensions. I went to his house and helped him assemble the thing on the drive way and fill it with his belongings. Then a truck turned up and a fork-lift picked up the pallet and loaded it onto the truck. A couple of days later a similar truck dumped the pallet outside his new apartment.
-- pocmloc, Nov 04 2023


Please define "skates"
-- Voice, Nov 04 2023


// define skates //

I would define a skate as a connector-defined propulsion platform, that can route bodies by having bodies attached on top of it with complementary interface on the bottom of the car bodies.

So, a skate = propulsion and control system with an attachment interface for vehicle body attachment on top of it.

The interface would have to cover or nearly cover entire bottom part of the body, and enable the car ride on it by controlling it, leaving no bottom space left for simultaneous use of an alternative propulsion system attached to the same interface. (if boat interface is attached, the wheels-based interface cannot be simultaneously attached, and vice versa)

The concept of a such "skate" is related to concept of "cassete player," but different in it being conceptually narrower directionally (covering only top-bottom cases of interfacing), and conceptually more exteriorized topologically (while casette could be encompassed by its casette player, a car body is only covered by skate from one side).

Of course, one could generalize the modularity principle by removing the constraint "from the bottom of the vehicle body," encompassing other forms of propulsion systems with interfaces, but that's beyond the scope of this particular idea.
-- Mindey, Nov 04 2023


WIFRT, a salt-water bottom-feeder ("skate") was going to be added to the flag ("standard") of a coastal "city" (maybe Jakarta) as it began its transition to a new underwater status.
-- pertinax, Nov 04 2023



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