Save the streets for these!

Beef up that road maintenance and replacing budget - CARS are here to stay!  And if these are any indication of what is coming, the future will be fun!  And clean, and fuel efficient.

If you keep looking backwards, you can't see what is ahead.  

Current urban planning theories do not acknowledge that significant new technology will occur to make the automobile, or other powered modes of personal transportation viable in the future.  It seems that Central Planners lack the imagination that allows for new ideas that don't come pre-packaged from a think-tank or textbook.  Entrepreneurs and inventors are still among us (thank goodness!) solving problems we have or haven't conceived of yet.  

Here are several possibilities of the cars we might be seeing on our streets sometime in the future. (Note:  3-wheeled vehicles are regulated as motorcycles.)  So keep those streets repaired, because they will be needed for a long, long time to come!  

 

Volkswagen "Expand". 1-3 passenger, 3-wheeled car, expands for more passenger room.  Front wheel removes to become a personal mobility vehicle - a gyroscopic unicycle. 

The Elio.  Engineering executive Paul Elio thinks the time has come for the commuter car he has shown here. He hopes to sell it for as little as $6,800 and claims gas mileage as high as 49 miles per gallon in the city, 84 mpg on the highway. It has one door, two seats and three wheels. The driver sits in front of the passenger.

The Hiriko Fold, a super compact 2-passenger electric car, specially designed for city driving; it easily folds upright to fit into tight parking spaces and can ride up to 75 miles between charges. The Hiriko Fold boasts first-class maneuverability due to zero-turn radius wheels, which allow it to move sidewards, making parallel parking a piece of cake. The MIT’s Changing Places group and DENOKINN expect to launch the 

Volkswagen announced production of what they claim is the world's most fuel efficient car - capable of a staggering 313 miles per gallon. The radical VW XL1 will be powered by a tiny 800cc diesel engine and a separate electric motor and battery pack. This will give the plug-in hybrid a 0-62mph time of 12.2 seconds and a top speed limited to a modest 99mph.

Honda 2005 FCX prototype fuel cell car.