> Going for this feature will replace the (obligatory) stops at the gym before going to work although you might still find yourself appreciating the authenticity of going to an actual fitness place with humans alongside you.
Ah yes, because the alternative to biking in place in a pod-car on your way to work is to bike in place in a gym. Not, say, to ride an actual bike to work and get your exercise in that way! (And have other humans alongside you to boot.)
Have you ever tried to bike to work regularly? There are a huge number of problems, at least in American cities that aren't NYC:
- drivers don't give a crap about cyclists
- every time it rains everything you wear gets mud all over it
- no bike lanes in a lot of roads
- terrible public transit, either you sit next to people who smell like pee or the train comes every 30 mins or there are no bike racks or your bike is likely to get stolen if you leave it alone for 30 seconds
- if you need to pick something up on the way to or from work you basically need to wheel around your bike in the store because otherwise it's 100% getting stolen by some guys with an electric saw
- some American cities are very hilly, so any commute longer than 2-3 miles becomes very tiring
The last point is easily addressed by e-bikes. The rest is up to Americans to challenge by voting politicians who promise to make changes in those directions.
The article really reads like “here is what some marketing people did and based on zero other information here is what we could expect or maybe not because as I said we don’t have any information but here is some text just so you think there is more information when in fact there is nothing”.
They’re mocking the concept. That’s why there’s nothing interesting here. They think the idea is stupid.
“ Well, perhaps when this solution comes out, the government will have made sure that every square foot of tarmac is perfectly level everywhere in the world. Yes, I think that’s right. And anyway, in these clips previewing the car in a futuristic environment, you don’t ever see any bumps in the road, now do you?”
Hello dpark, my name is Tristan Boudazin aka TK Dynation and I'm the author of this article. You're right about the sarcasm and irony I put into this article as I don't take the idea very seriously. All in all it's interesting, just not realistic at least nowadays. Thank you for the commentary you and other users come up with, it's all very interesting to me. Have a great day, Tristan.
I wouldn't call this a "road vehicle", because there are basically no real world roads this flat. I drive a Chevy Volt in urban areas only and I'm constantly complaining how low the clearance is.
I could see this in use in factories, but this technology basically already exists so not sure what advantage these spherical wheels would give.
Yeah I was thinking of gigantic industrial/factory floor surfaces, some types of malls, and/or large theme parks. I think the first successful fully autonomous driving platform will probably have this wheel/frame style as a base, and operate within the confines of some single entity's road/surface network.
Exactly my thoughts. I kept thinking the interesting part is coming, but no, it’s just someone’s thoughts on a pre-alpha concept that nobody even pretends will ever become a reality.
If you think about any of their suggestions for more than three seconds, it becomes clear they’re not feasible. For example:
> The idea behind this concept is for the “cabin” part of the vehicle to constantly suit your personal requirements. In the future, you’ll be able to ask for a certain interior and exterior combination via an app probably and as the car comes to where you’re at, you get to discover, not only the perfect cabin for you but also some with different designs and purposes.
This would instantly double the amount of trips necessary for any rideshares where you need (want) to customize the cabin (Current Location -> Closest Cabin Station -> Your location, as opposed to Current Location -> Your location). Since folks customizing the cabin likely won’t want to pay double the price, that additional cost will be distributed in part to every consumer. For such a price sensitive market, I don’t see this being even close to feasible. That said, maybe the article was satirical like another commenter mentioned, and this was a comment made in jest that went entirely over my head.
Article sarcasm aside, PMDs are becoming extremely common. There are scooters in many cities, and there's stuff like powered boards. Yes, there are a range of new challenges with PMDs.
Citroen has probably noticed the trend and is trying to get ahead of it, but is missing the point entirety.
I'm really struggling to understand why this exist. Yes, clearly this is 100% a marketing effort to make Citroen look "cool" or even still-relevant, but anyone watching this should yell "He has no clothes on" as this "concept" has no feasible path to reality and isn't even an obviously good solution to the problems they are trying to solve.
Contemporary automobiles are clearly not perfect, but they have evolved over a century to put considerable thought to safety and efficiency. This "concept" throws everything out the window in exchange for ... cars that go sideways.
I'd like to contrast this to Volvo's effort a decade or so ago where they asked the question "Car design is all male focused, but what are the _actual_ issues women care about?" and came out with really useful if mundane ideas (easier/hands-free access, greener material, etc). There are things that can actually be realized and would be helpful.
If I remember correctly that design had a fatal masculine flaw: “Women don’t care about mechanics so we’ll make the engine bay unopenable or hide the engine under an extra trunk”
They were right that most drivers don’t care about that and think of cars as tools, not hobbies. But framing it as a women’s thing was rough.
I think many modern cars are actually quite close to that prototype in spirit. Especially the electric versions.
Putting aside gripping strength versus traditional wheels for a moment, it would be interesting to see if this would enable more efficient street geometries. For example, due to the reduced turning radius, could this open up additional safety buffer space for pedestrians at city crosswalks?
These don’t provide a better turning radius than traditional wheels. The reduced turning radius only happens because the left and right wheels can spin independently, but you can do that with traditional wheels (but not traditional drive trains).
I’m not sure that this does anything for pedestrian safety, though.
> These don’t provide a better turning radius than traditional wheels
Spherical wheels provide zero radius for off-original-orientation movement from a stop (and similar but somewhat less benefit at low speed) because you can thrust independently of the direction of orientation.
This isn't the same a reduced turning radius, but it has similar effects for certain low speed maneuvers to an extreme reduction in turning radius.
Standard wheels can provide a zero (or rather, minimum possible) turning radius with appropriate drive. Tracked vehicles like excavators frequently turn in place with a minimal radius by turning their tracks in opposite directions. This action does not need spherical wheels. It doesn’t even need 4 independent wheels.
The only thing you can get from spherical wheels that you can’t get from standard wheels with comparable drive is sideways motion, which granted, would be kind of awesome (zooming down the highway and switching lanes with no directional change), but also not actually that useful. You can also get a bit of this from independently-steerable wheels, as someone else pointed out. But that won’t get you sideways motion from a standstill if that’s somehow useful.
> You can also get a bit of this from independently-steerable wheels, as someone else pointed out. But that won’t get you sideways motion from a standstill if that’s somehow useful.
You can actually get it from independently steerable wheels with AWD if they are mounted and driven independently (practical with an electric power system) rather than off a common axle; I’m pretty sure I recall concept vehicles (or at least designs) from various car companies with that design, for that purpose.
The typical highlighted urban use case is zero-approach parallel parking. For autonomous vehicles, especially, it would make higher density but basically random access (and, therefore, not subject to easy blockage by small number of vehicle failures) storage possible
> zooming down the highway and switching lanes with no directional change
You probably can't get better than AWD with independently steerable wheels on an axle for this, because the limiting factor in how far you can change thrust direction while maintaining control at highway speed is going to be traction long before it is maximum wheel angle.
Regular wheels can literally do that as well. Left wheels forward, right wheels reverse will spin a vehicle like a top.
Spherical wheels can do it more efficiently because they can do it with less slippage. But regular wheels can absolutely do that maneuver. Even tracks can. Heavy equipment does this all the time.
If you have four wheel steering and a large range of steering then even normal wheels can do it without slippage. See for example this Jeep prototype vehicle.
Yes but only if you stand on a point, not in moving traffic.
E.g. if you are on a bike you can have a hyper small turning radius, but only if you mover very very slow (but not too slow ;) ).
The problem is requiring such a radius would be a safety hazard, as people would all the time not get the turn due to driving to fast, even if they literally started driving a moment ago due to a red traffic light.
A concept car is an exercise aimed at keeping your designers happy (might be cheaper and/or more effective than giving them a bonus at keeping them motivated in their job) and at, maybe, getting one or two good original and useful ideas.
The customizability in this concept is the over-the-top version of what Citroen offers for the new Ami, where about €60 will buy you a set of stickers (https://ma-belle-voiture.com/en/72-citroen-ami) (I also think the idea of having different ‘tops’ for a car isn’t new, but can’t find an example online)
This looks like a useful thing for special purpose areas,
like like the kinds of areas like areas with a set of
exhibition halls and similar.
But thinking it makes sense "on a normal street" sound to me
like a solution from an American world view bubble.
Like e.g. the ground clearing of this thing is a catastrophe
and speed bumps are a standard solutions for reducing people
going gross over speed limits in many parts of the worlds (or
the streets are less maintained, or the streets go steep up
and down in the mountains).
Similar for many parts of the world the _proven_ solution of
cars is to have much less of them (and in some cases avoid
unnecessary large cars). Which works out quite well in
many cases. And has many benefits, like less resource wasted,
less noise pollution, less air pollution, better local economics,
etc. Many of this factors still apply to electric cars in some
way or another.
The only areas where such a concept makes sense is if you:
- have supper well maintained roads
- either have a super high population density (e.g. Tokyo, or
Singapore) but then you probably don't have size for that
fancy setup you can put onto it
- or are supper dependent on cars to a point where it feels impossible
to not rely on cars (many parts of the US)
What I find weird is they are showing this as a concept car. The idea seems better suited for autonomous trolleys or personal mobility in places like shopping centers or airports.
I had that same immediate thought and then realized that it doesn’t make sense there either. The interchangeable tops seems uninteresting and the spherical “wheels” don’t seem to deliver any real value over wheels, just more complexity.
The interchangeable tops would be whats loaded in the warehouse.
>and the spherical “wheels” don’t seem to deliver any real value over wheels, just more complexity.
They take away a lot of navigational complexity in a warehouse setting where you don't have much space. And they could do exactly the maneuvers necessary in that setting, like bringing a package directly into its designated space, unloading it and then driving out underneath.
> The interchangeable tops would be whats loaded in the warehouse.
You mean the tops are essentially pallets? Okay but how do you get them on and off? This seems like a forklift make more sense.
> They take away a lot of navigational complexity in a warehouse setting where you don't have much space.
I don’t see it. You still need a mechanism to load/unload unless the things you’re moving are capable of doing that themselves somehow. Unless your load/unload mechanism is somehow omnidirectional, you’ll need to turn the vehicle anyway, negating most of the benefit.
How do you get the car tops on and off that demo vehicle? I'm asking this since I closed the article and couldn't imagine any good way, but whatever it is, you use the same mechanism with the pallets. Something certainly goes up and takes the load, like a forklift.
And yes, it's often easier to make the load/unload mechanism omnidirectional than to make a space where a directional vehicle can maneuver.
I have no idea if the designers had any plan for how to change out the tops. My guess is they didn’t think it through that far because this whole concept seems poorly thought through.
If you were doing to change the tops, though, I would expect some external lift would do that job. Adding lift capabilities to the base or to the tops would add a bunch of weight for no reason. (Those extra tops have to be stored somewhere. Might as well keep the lift mechanism in the storage facility.) The obvious answer is that a forklift is used to put the top onto the base.
I swear this was a background element in one of the new Star Trek's. Failing to find a clip. At the time, I thought it was a waste of special effects, only to later discover it was a real product.
That is certainly cool, but the video seems like evidence that it’s not actually very useful. The forklift pointlessly drives sideways to show it can, but a standard forklift could just turn and go straight so what’s the value from all the extra complexity?
Those sidewinder wheels seem like a much better solution than the captive spheres in the concept car, though.
Forget the imagined future. What's needed now is a sled complete with batteries and electric motor(s) utilizing regular tires. You know how many people in places like Detroit have the skill set to build electric cars with that small amount of help? Create a fiberglass body, source an interior and software and you're in business.
Admittedly you won't compete against Tesla or the Big 3 but there are plenty of niches where you might. They won't all be sports cars either. Taxis, police cars or special purpose delivery vehicles.
There are small profitable niches where no one has even entertained the idea of battery powered cars yet. I love the idea of a one pizza car company operating out of what now is an abandoned warehouse in Detroit.
On you point of Detroit. I believe that's exactly what China did. They made cars with the modified existing infrastructures. That's how they produced a few domestic ev brands so fast, which IPOed in US in just a few years.
Hah, that mockup of the "JCDecaux City Provider" driving in a city street is absolutely hilarious!
Aside from the ridiculous "cabs" and zero ground-clearance, I wonder if the idea of spherical wheels has any legs. I presume it would be too complex for an average human to control, but I wonder if it might make sense for autonomous vehicles - it would give them much more scope to manoeuvre, and might lead to increased safety.
I was trying to find an all-electric 7-seater the other day. The market for this type of vehicle is nearly non-existent in the US, but for a brief moment I thought the Citroen e-Berlingo was the answer to my prayers: far superior in range and price point to any competing US vehicle. I was ready to look past the fugly Euro design and pony up.
Chrysler Pacifica, though only for the first (estimated) 33 miles. Still, I've been very tempted as I shop around minivans. 33 miles is enough for almost any day of my driving, aside from trips. If I'm regularly exceeding that distance in a day, it's time for me to move somewhere more compact.
OTOH, looking at the XL (which has 7 seats rather than 5), cold weather highway range is only 140km. I suspect that this accomplishes more in Europe than it does in the US; in any case, I see enormous value in having PHEV range for daily tasks while retaining the engine for family trips, which quickly get into the hundreds of miles.
No, it's not that they dont sell there, it s that you dont buy them. Too busy buying pickup truck-sized machines to 16yo children and calling everything not spitting black diesel smoke "fugly Euro" :p
Ah right, we "ugly Americans" are always pretending to know things we don't know, like whether a car dealer we wish to buy from sells in our own market. We should defer to our international betters on these sort of basic facts, as well as on the appropriate number of random blue rounded rectangular rings that should appear on the exterior of a car (the answer, apparently, is much more)
Well I don't know about blue rounded rectangular rings, but I like the american attention to such details as making sure your trunk has a separator and an inside handle if people kidnap you at gunpoint and put you in your own trunk.
This takes time for us in France to build such cars with such sort of regulations that you won't buy anyway because they're just fugly euro and not manly japanese. Start lobbying your congressman for more Citroen imports though, who knows, it may last a while before the next "Liberty Fries" boycott because someone here refused to murder some children in some "shit country" :p
Trying to restore some buzz for the maker at the same time that Citroen is progressively diluting their both main brands (Citroen and DS) into the Stellantis group
Citroen is not a "french company" anymore. It belongs currently to Stellantis that includes Opel, Maseratti, Lancia, Peugeot, Fiat, Chrystler or Jeep under the same brand.
> How does the car cope with zero ground clearance and what seems like no possible suspension travel. Well, perhaps when this solution comes out, the government will have made sure that every square foot of tarmac is perfectly level everywhere in the world.
Or it's from a POV of a supper car dependent person living in a supper car dependent area where that seems like something which will happen if humanity has a "good" future.
I seem to remember this about twenty years ago. Different company, but the same concept -- everything was in a "skateboard," with the main body being the batteries, each wheel had its own motor, and you could swap out compartments.
I remember reading about a similar concept at least 15 years ago, perhaps more, but for hydrogen fuel cell cars, rather than all electric. They kept traditional wheels, though.
What is the point of exposing the wheels like that? Seems to serve no purpose other than aesthetics and looks to be very dangerous (a finger and foot trap).
We don't cover or shroud car tires much at present, and that doesn't cause injuries particularly? I do agree this design seems to be more aesthetic than practical (I'd like to see it in the rain...)
Sure but tires these days have a bumper somewhere in the direction of travel. If the spherical tires are going straight sideways, it's more likely to catch something by accident. Also, you're not generally going to pinch your finger in a wheel well like you would with this arrangement.
Do they? Tires only have significant contact area because they deform. I would expect that with the right air pressure, these would match the contact area.
I’m more concerned about the fact that the tires have no actual tread, which means they’re going to be unusable in the rain. Of course this whole thing makes no sense so none of this matters.
there is no need for such radical approach. With electric motor in the wheel instead of having a drive shaft, we can have regular wheels turning 90 degree and thus having car move even sideways.
Yes, like all of you, it feels a little ridiculous to me. Maybe a LOT ridiculous. But, I don't know, 99% of the time someone tries to sell you on some "bold thinking," it just isn't.
Love it or hate it, I really respect that they're putting something genuinely different out there. Respect to them for actually doing what Elon Musk imagines he's doing.
Don't worry, you can take an electric scooter in the cabin with you to solve the last mile problem! Phew, that was a close one. You almost became a cyclist!
Or worse: A pedestrian. But luckily with this you'll still be able to wait for 10 minutes, then drive a circuitous 5km route rather than walking to the shop your house shares a fence with.
