- Concept created by two Car Design Research associates proposes electric vans as an alternative to short-haul airline flights.
- Vans could be based at airport rental agencies, offering the same routes as those offered by airlines.
- EV ride-pooling with Level 4 autonomous tech is something that’s already headed into production, just not on an inter-city level.
This past holiday travel season was surely among those that tested the maximum distance Americans would opt to drive instead of fly. Yet even without the disruptions sparked by the pandemic—not to mention the fear of infection from crammed airplane cabins—short-haul flights themselves may be ripe for a rethinking given the indignities of modern air travel and the pollution they create. The time and hassle of just getting to an airport, and then enduring the ever-popular TSA lines once there, makes the the decision to drive more attractive if the door-to-door time comes close to overall time it takes to fly.
A concept created…