T.25 car to "revolutionise urban transport"

[alexb]

From the Telegraph, link here: Gordon Murray and his T.25 city car - Telegraph

Surely it's not a revolution if it's just another car though?

I'd have though the Urban Transport revolution is happening quietly without being really noticed.

How many new cargo bikes are we seeing on the streets now?
A few years ago when we all were commenting on the various tandems and triplets we were seeing on the school run.
I now regularly see Kristiana and other cargo bikes together with those natty Backfiets and the tricycle Verlorbis family bikes. Boris' new bikes have sort of completed the loop. I see more bikes in London now than ever before and ridden by a much wider age range than ever before.

This morning, for the first time ever, I saw unaccompanied children riding to school in Chelsea. Two girls, both about 12 years old, who filtered confidently into the second space on the road at the traffic lights before  disappearing off behind Chelsea fire station. At the lights they were chattering away, completely relaxed.

What a brilliant sight!

[Regulator]

Gordon Murray and his company were on the news last night.  They are seen as being at the forefront on the new startups that will help the UK through the turbulent years ahead, particularly if production can be retained in the UK.

All this coverage would seem to indicate a rather good publicity campaign.

[rogerzilla]

There aren't many more cyclists in the provinces.  I feel a lot safer cycling in London than I do round here; relative speeds are much, much lower in the city and there are fewer roundabouts and fast 40/50mph boulevards.

[Cudzoziemiec]

I feel safest cycling in Poland! And within Poland I feel safer on country roads and small towns than in big cities. Drivers here give a lot of room to cyclists, going right over to the other side of the road usually, but in heavy traffic that's not possible.

Conversely, I feel safer driving or being driven in UK. The respect that Polish drivers give to cyclists they don't give to each other. And in India - well, I cycled wherever I could.

In place of non-environmentally friendly stamped steel – typically 350 pieces go into a modern car – Murray returned to principles he knew from F1; a lightweight tubular steel chassis requiring basic, inexpensive tooling. Strength comes from incredibly light, strong composite panels bonded onto the chassis with plastic body panels that give the car its shape. It means a massive drop in energy requirements and a dramatically lower environmental impact.

So it's a return to cars with frames.

[tonycollinet]

Surely it's not a revolution if it's just another car though?

!

Revolution is in the manufacturing tech.

[Ian H]

There aren't many more cyclists in the provinces.  I feel a lot safer cycling in London than I do round here; relative speeds are much, much lower in the city and there are fewer roundabouts and fast 40/50mph boulevards.

Depends which province. Down here, cycling is very much on the increase. It's now a rare occasion when I don't see other cyclists on the road. It wasn't always thus. In fact, I've recently seen bikes with trailers and such.

[alexb]

What really worried me about the general tone of the article was the idea that by building smaller cars you could increase urban traffic densities. The article refers to fitting three cars into one parking space, two into a garage, that the narrow cars could overtake each other in a single lane etc.
The general tone is that high levels of urban traffic density was somehow desirable.

I think the opposite is the target to aim for, low density private traffic, high proportion of public transport and lots of bicycles...lots of bicycles.

[Crumbling Nick]

There aren't many more cyclists in the provinces.  I feel a lot safer cycling in London than I do round here; relative speeds are much, much lower in the city and there are fewer roundabouts and fast 40/50mph boulevards.

Possibly true, for some values of provinces.

Around here, the number of cyclists on the roads during rush hour has increased dramatically over the past 15 years. Guess is that the growth factor is between 4 & 10. In addition there are lots of MTBs ridden on the pavements, which almost never happened 15 years ago.

The "feel safer" bit is not limited to the Sarf eest. It's a lot more comfortable riding on the main roads in central Brum than out here in the suburbs. I have tried London recently - Marylebone to Turnpike Lane at 6 p.m. on a Friday (loaded tourer with 95 miles in my legs!) was frustratingly slow and different. London drivers & cyclists did not seem to be very civilised, nevertheless the ride did not seem to be that hazardous.

Back to OP's point. Congestion has become much worse around here, which is probably why cycling has increased. There are also many more people walking. It's not quite the Transport Revolution yet, but it's definitely a step in the right direction. What is more subversive is a big increase in the number of other pedestrians & cyclists who respond to a  smile and exchange a brief greeting.

[PhilO]

I think the opposite is the target to aim for, low density private traffic, high proportion of public transport and lots of bicycles...lots of bicycles.

Er... Is that not high-density private traffic? 

I know what you mean, but smaller powered vehicles have to be better than large powered vehicles, even if you favour unpowered vehicles...

[Oaky]

Are they named after Trangias because of the size or the power output? 

[andygates]

It's a small car.  Woo.  They didn't save the world before, did they?

[Cudzoziemiec]

The article talks mainly of the advantages to reducing width of cars. This I agree with, kind of. Width seems to be the main growth dimension of cars - compare a modern small car with a car of the 70s, let alone the 30s, and never mind a horse cart! Length is similar (horse + cart definitely longer than almost any car) but not width.

However, you aren't going to have narrower lanes while there are still lorries and buses. And I don't think that 2 x 1.3m will really fit safely into a single lane (unless they're all driven by ex-racing drivers!). I certainly wouldn't like to be overtaken by that combo.

[alexb]

I think the opposite is the target to aim for, low density private traffic, high proportion of public transport and lots of bicycles...lots of bicycles.

Er... Is that not high-density private traffic? 

I know what you mean, but smaller powered vehicles have to be better than large powered vehicles, even if you favour unpowered vehicles...

My point really is that packing more internal combustion engines into a smaller space is a retrograde step, not a revolution.
Electric cars are certainly part of the answer, but not if they're stuck in gridlocked traffic.

[andygates]

Car shapes are just footling around - like you say, the lanes have to be able to handle general traffic.  There are times when narrow is good (my camper is deliberately a skinny Mazda for this reason: tight lanes round here!) but it won't change the world.

What would be revolutionary is to hand control over to a cooperative flocking set of algorithms that'd replace lane-and-braking-distance human driving with more herdlike behavior; pack in enough sensors and they'd stream round everyone else, dynamically use the roadspace as flow required, and all sorts.  But that is blue-sky stuff at present.

Cramming more engines onto the street isn't the future, it's Cairo.

[Jaded]

Making better use of a smaller fleet of vehicles would be a revolution. Currently these complex and environmentally expensive machines are hardly used at all during their lifetimes. 

[andygates]

The problem there is of a high peak need.  Rush hour has been bedeviling efficiency mavens since the office and suburb were invented.  You need enough vehicles to do the rush hour, and then even if they were maximally shared, they'd still be mostly idle; I think focusing on their idleness is a false trail.  After all, bikes are idle most of the time too...

[Jaded]

Agreed, and the subject of a long journey discussion with my kids last weekend! I'm sure that with a large chunk of peak-supressing initiatives a reasonable enough change would be possible. Probably when the cost associated with having a personal motor car rises towards ruinous.

[andygates]

Peak-suppression never seems to quite do it: support services need to be available at the same time as problems, the school run has to be at one time (at least, one time per school), and people generally dislike working shifts. 

In dense areas, a good fix is achieved with mass transit, which resolves the peak capacity issue with a better ratio of infrastructure to bodies moved. 

[Cudzoziemiec]

Making better use of a smaller fleet of vehicles would be a revolution. Currently these complex and environmentally expensive machines are hardly used at all during their lifetimes. 

Whereas this would be a bigger fleet of smaller vehicles!

[Jaded]

You could certainly see these things added to a stable of cars, rather than replacing the wankpanzer, or mid-life sportster.

[Clandy]

From the Telegraph, link here: Gordon Murray and his T.25 city car - Telegraph

Surely it's not a revolution if it's just another car though?

I'd have though the Urban Transport revolution is happening quietly without being really noticed.

How many new cargo bikes are we seeing on the streets now?
A few years ago when we all were commenting on the various tandems and triplets we were seeing on the school run.
I now regularly see Kristiana and other cargo bikes together with those natty Backfiets and the tricycle Verlorbis family bikes. Boris' new bikes have sort of completed the loop. I see more bikes in London now than ever before and ridden by a much wider age range than ever before.

This morning, for the first time ever, I saw unaccompanied children riding to school in Chelsea. Two girls, both about 12 years old, who filtered confidently into the second space on the road at the traffic lights before  disappearing off behind Chelsea fire station. At the lights they were chattering away, completely relaxed.

What a brilliant sight!

I saw the T.25 on a news item a couple of days ago. Nice idea but I really don't like the 'hatch' door. If you had to get in and out in the hissing down rain the interior would be drenched.

[Fab Foodie]

You could certainly see these things added to a stable of cars, rather than replacing the wankpanzer, or mid-life sportster.

This is also my thinking.
Getting people out of wanktanks onto bicycles or public transport is not going to be a one-step move.  

However, I think as motoring costs rise, congestion and parking are more difficult,  more and more people will have a second small car to go with their wanktank.  If they're sexy mini-motors that you can blurt about wiv yer mates inda pub, then all the better.  My hope is that people will get to appreciate the benefit of small cars in the urbansphere and they'll proliferate.

To my mind it's an easier step from driving a microwagon (where you're physically closer to the outside world)to say a scooter, bicycle or even travelling with the great unwashed.

[gordon taylor]

Car shapes are just footling around - like you say, the lanes have to be able to handle general traffic.
 

If we were brave enough to introduce a new class of narrow/light motor vehicle, that may not be so. Those who drove a NLV would be able to access cheaper parking and, perhaps, specific cut-through routes or contraflows. There needs to be IMHO, a real disincentive to buy and use a large vehicle on congested streets. Cost is one aspect, but actually shutting off specific roads to vehicles over a certain size would make people think deeply about their choices.

It'll never happen,   but some aspects of a change towards cheap, small vehicles are quite attractive.

[Clandy]

If we were brave enough to introduce a new class of narrow/light motor vehicle...

I'd buy <a href="http://www.youtube.com/v/W7sGGkiKO_Y&rel=1" target="_blank">http://www.youtube.com/v/W7sGGkiKO_Y&rel=1</a>. Shame they were wildly expensive and the company went bankrupt last year.  

[Cudzoziemiec]

We could start with restrictions on the dimensions of what can be classed as a car for tax purposes and driven on that licence. At the moment a car can AFAIUI legally be as wide as a lorry and up 3500kg, and the way many of them are heading they soon will be! More sensible 'car-like' maximum dimensions - say 1.8m wide and up to 2000kg - would be a step in the right direction.