Small electric cars are a practical way of travelling short distances in town. They're environmentally responsible, cheap to run, easy to park, and they mostly look like the bastard offspring of an iMac and a Yugo. I submit that the final factor is significant in their low adoption rate.

So: let's get uncreative with electric car design. Let's make them retro. Very retro. Let's make them like they did in the 19th century! One-horse carriages are elegant, pretty, and small. So: add wheelmotors and appropriate blinkenlights, mount a windshield, replace the reins with a steering wheel for the sake of compatibility, and recreate a small carriage as a modern horseless carriage. Literally: the only thing missing is the horse.

But in the abscence of a horse, you ask, how will the two-wheeled carriage acheive stability? By the same clever methods, involving gyroscopic sensors, as a Segway. And what are you going to do with the horse attachement? Well, we're going to leave it there. We might well attatch ornamental reins, giving the vauge impression of a carriage pulled by an invisible horse.

Hey, the turning radius is great.
-- gisho, Nov 20 2010

http://www.skyejeth...egway-rickshaw/301/ [2 fries shy of a happy meal, Nov 20 2010]

4-seat concept from Mercedes http://www.google.c...=&aql=&oq=&gs_rfai=
Entirely impractical when this big; better as a 1-seat commuter. [neutrinos_shadow, Nov 26 2010]

Dang near baked [gisho]. [link] Minus the horse attachment.
You're right, the turning radius is great.
-- 2 fries shy of a happy meal, Nov 20 2010


I like it.

One question, though. With a Segwoidal system, how much energy is spent in keeping the system balanced?
-- MaxwellBuchanan, Nov 20 2010


Actually, chaise is from Latin; it just stopped off in Paris, on its way from Rome to London. "Charrette" (cart) on the other hand, is, I believe the only word the French can truly claim as their own.
-- mouseposture, Nov 20 2010



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