I’m all in favour of building smaller and lighter cars. However, I think the single passenger design exemplified by the Sparrow is going too far. Even if a car is used just for single passenger commuting, the utility of the vehicle becomes much higher if it can, in a pinch, carry two passengers. Drive a friend home from work because his ride left early, pick up Mom from the airport while your husband is driving the kids to lacrosse practice in the real car, these things don’t need to happen more than once or twice a month for a single-seater to feel very limited.
I’d rather see the development of very small two-seaters. Carry two in a pinch, passenger seat holds as many groceries as you’re likely to stop for on the way home from work, and your vehicle is far more useful. And it needn’t weigh much more, though you are stuck with more frontal area unless you go with tandem seating, which isn’t likely to be a selling feature.
The link I posted shows cars just like you describe.
Another point - in any collision the guy in the lighter car comes off worst, even if it is just as strong.The momentum of the heavy car allows it to continue undisturbed.Here in Europe cars are much lighter (gas is expensive)but the US consumer prefers SUVs & will do until gas gets expensive.
Cars here have been getting lighter for years, but not universally liked…you can buy cars with fibreglass bodies, but some have a rep for overturning in high winds!
MCC Smart (which is a Mercedes company) would fit this description, plus it has a small luggage area. Not big enough to take on vacation, but big enough for two people to carpool, or to use for the weekly grocery run. Now if somebody would do this for a non-Merc price tag…
Similarly, Volkswagen/Audi have developed great diesel engines for passenger cars. The soot problem is almost gone, they’re quiet and powerful, and they cut fuel consumption nearly in half compared to similar gasoline engines. But they’re not cheap. If someone would work on bringing the costs down, they’d be more attractive to an ordinary consumer. This would bring much more immediate benefits than hydrogen cars - the technology exists already!
Heh Heh… so very true.
Many years ago, as a young man, I chose to ride a motorcycle for a while, and I remember seeing a rather humourous poster in a motorcycle shop called “The Survival of the Fittest”.
And it showed various levels of which particular road users could kill what. It was a funny version of the “feeding chain” if you will…
(1) Pedestrians…
(2) Cyclists can kill pedestrians…
(3) Motorcyclists can kill cyclists…
(4) Car drivers can kill motorcyclists…
(5) Trucks can kill cars.
(6) Road Trains can kill trucks.
(7) And what can kill a Road Train?
(8) A mile long, 9 engine, railway Freight Train.
Accordingly, the real bummer is that the majority of us road users have to share the roads with vehicles far higher up in the feeding chain sadly!
I was going to point you towards the smart car, but was just beaten by flodnak. At least I managed to get the URL in there.
They are quite popular in central european cities, as they are easy to park, and cheap in fuel. The diesel version is close to 3 litres/100km (>80mpg, if I can do my maths today).
As our fuel prices are about 4 times what you’re experiencing in the US, that’s quite a compelling reason.
As others have mentioned, that kind of car is not something you take the familly on vacation with, but it is more than sufficient for commuting/shopping. You even see them with ski racks going up into the mountains.