Rolling Out The Blobject  

WorldChanging and the BBC recently took a look at a blobject manifestation in Cordoba, Spain.

Alfredo Romeo opens the door of a newly built garage just off one of Cordoba's main streets. He can hardly wait to show off the cars inside. He points to a sleek, curvy little number. "It's a wonderful car, a marvellous car," says Mr Romeo with used-car salesman relish. "It's noiseless. It's very safe. It's reliable. This model is the two-seater. I love the cars."

But Mr Romeo is not selling cars, he is renting them. And he is not talking about Porsches or Lamborghinis. Instead, he is renting Gems, or Global Electric Motorcars. Half a dozen of the vehicles are scattered throughout the garage, plugged into the mains. They are charging up for a day of work on Cordoba's busy streets. One charge is usually good for about 50 miles (80km).

Gems are made in the US by a division of Daimler-Chrysler. They have a flowing, curvilinear design reminiscent of an Apple eMac computer, or a Volkswagen Beetle. Objects with that kind of shape have picked up their own moniker - blobjects.

Alfredo Romeo has been taken with the idea of blobjects ever since he heard technology guru Bruce Sterling discuss them in a speech. "Sterling said something that I really love," says Mr Romeo. "He said, 'Blobjects are going to float our world.'"

Given that transport is by far the largest consumer of oil, dealing with oil depletion inevitably involves making transport much more efficient (or reducing our need for it). The Victorian government is backing car sharing. A slightly different approach is being tried out in Sydney called "SmartPilots" which rents out small, fuel efficient cars in central locations for use over a short period within the city.

Ford has announced plans to increase production of hybrids by a factor of 10 (starting from a very low base) by 2010.

Ford Motor Co. jumped on the hybrid car bandwagon today with a promise to boost production tenfold to 250,000 cars and trucks per year by 2010, the strongest commitment yet by a Detroit automaker to build gas-electric vehicles. Speaking in Dearborn, Mich., Bill Ford Jr., the company's chairman and chief executive, said Ford was acting without prodding from policy makers in the government. He said Ford would choose to be environmentally progressive through hybrid production and "get on with it."

Toyota is to cut prices on hybrid cars, and has announced that it may soon put hybrid engines in all vehicles in future. They have also demonstrated a strange looking concept car called the i-unit. Puegeot also have a weird looking personal mobility unit, in their case, called the "moovie".

Plenty of other car makers are jumping on the hybrid bandwagon, with Jim at The Energy Blog providing a good summary called "Is there a hybrid in your future ?".

Some reports have noted that diesel cars can be more efficient than hybrids, but this does ignore the longer term view - hybrids will eventually be able to be charged by electricity from mostly (or all) renewable sources and use a minimal amont of liquid fuel - whereas diesel engines will always run on diesel. In the meantime diesel hybrids would seem to be the best bet.

Mother Jones has an interview with Green Car Congress's Mike Milliken on "the future of the automobile in the face of global oil shortfalls, about the public's dawning awareness of global warming and the energy crunch, and about the array of promising transportation technologies that could wean us, however gradually, from our dangerous addiction to fossil fuels.".

"The global energy economy is on the brink of a fundamental and forced transformation, with enormous market opportunities for new solutions in energy and transportation." So says Mike Millikin, a former Internet consultant and now publisher of Green Car Congress, a web site dedicated to educating the public on the energy challenges -- and choices -- posed by climate change and our over-dependence on fossil fuels.

With global demand for petroleum pushing the limits of worldwide supply, most experts think the world's oil supply will peak – if it hasn't already – sometime within the next decade. What will happen as that limit nears, gas prices soar, and global competition for oil intensifies? What are the U.S. and the world doing to prepare for this looming crisis?

Finally, the best way to minimise transport related oil usage is to use public transport or ride a bike - the Brompton Bike combines both of these.

The Observer recently interviewed Andrew Ritchie, the man who invented the Brompton portable folding bike. In a previous article, we highlighted the strengths of this bicycle, giving it high marks for its compactness and overall performance. Here's an excerpt from the interview:

...Ritchie, 58, is more than just another cyclist. He is a self-confessed obsessive, someone who has devoted the past 30 years of his life to building the best portable bicycle in the world, a machine that is fun and efficient to ride but can be quickly folded into a package smaller than an average suitcase, carried up and down stairs, tucked behind a train seat or secreted under a desk.

The Triobike is another multi-purpose transportation device.

The trioBike is one very cool and exciting design. And on so many levels. Where to start? Well, it’s a normal bicycle that can convert into a pedal-powered cargo hauler, which could also safely transport 2 children, to a maximum weight of 80 kg (176 lbs). But separate the two and you still have a perfectly functional bike, and a classy push carrier. All these transitions can be accomplished without specialised tools. Imagine the possibilities: load two kids in the front carrier and ride them to school or day-care. Detach the carrier and leave it at the school. Retrieve the bikes front wheel, cleverly located under the base of the carrier and continue on riding to work.