Hold on though – cars have been growing in size for as long as we can remember, and with it the congestion on our city streets too. Many cities are already fully pedestrianising streets. So is it time we reinvented the wheel? Already we’ve seen the Citroen Ami and Fiat Topolino siblings, and the reinvention of the Microlino and Renault Twizy (see the Mobilize Duo).
But Dacia says they’re all still too expensive to be a mass mobility solution, which leads us to this, the Hipster. It measures 3m long and 1.5m wide, has room for four adults inside, is designed to be as simple as possible and, says Dacia, offers enough range for daily journeys and hypothetically would only need to be recharged twice a week.
Lexus, too, has had a similar train of thought, but went one step further with its Micro LS Concept. A single-seat self-driving three wheeled pod, it’s designed for short inner city journeys only, and gets a cabin complete with a reclining chair, bespoke glassware, and floors and walls finished in bamboo. Either way, our city streets could soon look very different.
