I feel very fortunate and grateful to have followed a career path that has enabled me to work on a wide variety of projects across many different organisation types and markets. In the past, I’ve described myself as a bit of a ‘corporate gypsy’ which has taken on more significance recently after some research into part of my family does in fact show I share some Romany heritage with the actor Bob Hoskins – so maybe my desire to roam around in different places, soaking up new experiences and ideas is in the blood. Anyway, in the last few years I’ve roamed from software to cookware and from household appliances to automotive electronics. At any point I have been equally fascinated by the application of agile versus waterfall product development techniques, the material sciences that go into making a superior frying pan to how the design of a kitchen machine blade can make all the difference in mixing a smoothie. Right now, I am immersed in how smartphone technologies can be integrated safely into vehicle control and audio systems – a current growing concern in road safety. This last year working in the automotive industry has confirmed my earlier beliefs that it is ripe for some very fundamental invention and innovation. Our transport infrastructure continues to creak and groan under relentlessly growing demands and our over-reliance on fossil fuels looks more and more precarious as these resources become harder and harder to find, extract and process. In a flight of fancy that took off around this time last year I started to explore 3 potential routes of innovation that could help to address growing issues…

• Making single person journeys less wasteful and more efficient
• Modular and integrated transport solutions
• Harvesting and trading energy through the transport infrastructure

A year on, I’ve spent some time looking at the concepts and innovations that are being explored in these areas and it’s clear that a great deal of thinking and experimentation is happenning, which hopefully will lead to some significant breakthroughs and fundamental changes. (note:– here is an interesting video from January 2011 illustrating some of the ideas of future transportation being explored) The established automotive giants keep playing with ideas…

Most of the major car manufacturers have conceptual programmes underway for ‘city car’ designs.  With the US car manufacturers trying to regain some kudos for innovative, energy conscious thinking, GM has been pushing it’s experimental partnership with Segway with its development of the PUMA a semi-autonomous low footprint city vehicle. This side of the pond, another GM (F1 designer Gordon Murray) opened a few eyes earlier in the year with the T25/27 city car designs which rather unbelievably are said to be able to carry up to 3 people in a space that is 1/3rd the size of conventional cars. It was good to see Gordon Murray’s ideas win the 2010 SMMT innovation award and awards at the very successful Future Car Challenge. Although these unconventional ideas and experiments are often knocked by commentators I think it is encouraging that they are gaining coverage and recognition. Town planners dream of less congestion…

Integrated transport in Melbourne

GM/Segway’s City Car Vision

The GM stackable car concept

A couple of city engineering concepts I have seen recently have been pursuing the idea of integrating smaller transport units into other infrastructure. Some illustrations of an Australian concept show a tram type system that incorporates single wheeled/single person units that can join and leave the main vehicle at various points. Discovery Channel’s Mega Engineering, which looks at the potential massive build projects of the future, has examined personal pod projects underway at Heathrow Airport and an ambitious conceptual idea for Washington DC – described here in this Death of the Automobile clip. Mega Engineering shows an excellent example of potential transport robotics with amazing clips of Kiva Robots in action. Saving valuable space on roads and in parking areas…

The Mo Du Lo concept

The EU ‘HOST’ Concept of modular vehicle systems

Projections of population growth, vehicle ownership and land restraints illustrate that the way we currently travel by personal transport is increasingly unsustainable. If we think traffic congestion is bad in the UK, particularly in the south – it’s nothing compared to the massive traffic jams that have been experienced in China this year.  So… it is understandable that concepts designed to automate traffic flows and reduce the physical footprint of vehicles on the road and in parking environments are gathering pace. Exploiting renewable energy resources in the transport infrastructure

An MX5 Solar Conversion Project

Solar Collection Concept

The many millions of acres of car parking space and many hours that cars are parked in them seems like a criminally wasted opportunity to harness renewable energy. And because these vehicles then move from location to location there must be many an opportunity to trade the energy they collect in an ecosystem that rewards the generation of low carbon power. The Open Source Concept The most inspiring idea I have come across in the last year is Riversimple’s ‘Open Source’ Hydrogen Powered car project. The statement they have made on their FAQ’s about the importance of taking an ‘Open Source’ approach to their ideas I believe is fundamental to how we will address the challenges currently presented by the triple whammy of climate change, energy demands and population growth. It is encapsulated very well in this quote…

A window of opportunity has opened now that the flaws in our current model are self-evident and the need for a step change in our transport technology is widely recognised. We must seize this opportunity to establish new vehicle technology standards that are designed to optimise energy efficiency, because if zero emission but energy intensive vehicles establish themselves, it will be much harder ever again to question the basic architecture of cars.