Zoomi Life

People’s imaginations have few boundaries. Ideas are prolific and sometimes mind-boggling. The arena of electric cars is no different. How about an electric rental car that “stacks” to save space when it’s not being used?

Well, some people at MIT have had that idea and seen it through to conception. The result is the EICMA, a foldable electric car that they think can be marketed as a “last mile” rental.

The fabled “last mile” (not to be confused with the “Green Mile”) is the space between a transportation hub and a final destination. The last stretch between the subway terminal and the office building or the bus stop and the factory. This last mile is what most people dread on a public transit commute and is one of the bigger stumbling blocks between getting people to ride public transit versus driving their own vehicle.

The stackable car idea is the latest attempt to fill that gap and includes a lot of interesting concepts for filling that last mile. It’s not likely to get anywhere, but the idea itself is probably what matters here.

A similar endeavor in Lyon, France was done by a company called Velo’v with rental bicycles. This system put 20,000 bikes on the road at about 2,000 “stack” locations. The one-way rentals became popular quickly and the system is now being set up in Paris as well.

Of course, there’s a big difference between electric cars and bicycles.

This Post via The Daily Hybrid