Unfold and Ride

BOOMING auto sales threaten to jam the streets of Asian cities, which are already packed with bicycles and scooters. To help solve the problem, a group at M.I.T. was asked to find a solution. It designed a folding electric scooter that can be placed throughout cities for rental, much like the bicycle rental system in some European cities.

Skip to next paragraph Related Design: Getting an Early Start on Drawing the Future (December 16, 2007)

Working at the request of the Industrial Technology Research Institute in Taiwan and SYM, a scooter manufacturer based in Taiwan, the Smart Cities Group of the M.I.T. Media Laboratory, led by Prof. William J. Mitchell, created RoboScooter.

“We looked at existing folding bicycles and we looked at origami,” Mr. Mitchell, professor of architecture and media arts and sciences, said of the design. He said the students liked to call the vehicle “the cuter scooter.”

Their plan imagines a network of pickup and drop-off points for the scooters, which would fold to half their operating size. The scooters could then be stacked and recharged.

Computers would track scooter pickups and drop-offs to keep the system running smoothly. Each scooter would show its location with a built-in G.P.S. unit.

The group is considering putting the charging and pickup stations in sites like convenience stores, and it estimated that the need for scooter parking in Taiwan could be cut by 80 percent.

The prototype scooter was presented at the Milan Motor Show in November, with images showing how a station might be installed at the base of the Milan Cathedral.

Could this be the Vespa of the future?

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