Electric Avenue: The Future of Personal Transportation is More Than Just a Little Car

By Anjula Razdan
Published on October 1, 2000

Electric Avenue: The Future of Personal
Transportation is More Than Just a Little Car,
Paul
Makovsky, Metropolis
Has the era of the electric car finally arrived? And, if so, what
does it mean for us? Dan Sturges, director of ‘new mobility’ at
Silicon Valley design firm frogdesign, is part of the team that
created the Ford Think, an electric car with a maximum speed of 25
m.p.h. and a range of 30 miles per charge that will retail for
around $6,000 when it is released later this year. Sturges views
the electric car as the key to a community-based vision of
transportation that goes beyond issues of air pollution to tackle
problems of congestion, urban sprawl, and even declining civility.
Because the majority of all trips made by single drivers are five
miles or less, Sturges sees electric cars as the perfect vehicle to
anchor his proposal of a ‘Community Mobility System.’ ‘At a center
or hub of a community will be a neighborhood mobility center, where
you can pick up packages, get to car sharing, and have access to
mass transit. Mobility flags would be set down two miles apart in a
community, consolidating traffic and business around them and thus
discouraging sprawl.’ And, since these small cars are meant as
supplementary vehicles, rather than as replacements for a
conventional family car, they may prove more successful than
earlier attempts to market electric cars. — Anjula
Razdan
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