Green mini-car to beat congestion.

A tiny, three-wheeled car that could help solve city congestion has been demonstrated at the University of Bath.

The prototype Clever (Compact Low Emission Vehicle for Urban Transport) car is one metre wide and less polluting than normal vehicles.

It has a top speed of 100 km/h (60mph) and uses a novel tilting chassis to make it safe and manoeuvrable.

The traffic-busting two-seater is the result of a 40-month project by researchers in nine European countries.

The three-year, £1.5m EU-funded research project aimed to produce a totally different class of private motor vehicle specifically designed for the urban environment.

“The only solutions at the moment are motorbikes or cars” said Ben Drew, a research officer at the University of Bath, one of the institutions involved in the project.

“The idea is to try to marry the small size and efficiency of a motorcycle with the comfort and safety of a standard car,” he said.

Crash test

The team from Bath also had to design a novel chassis that keeps the narrow vehicle from rolling over when it turns corners.

The hydraulic system is electronically controlled and automatically tilts the vehicle as it goes round a corner, in a similar way to a motorcyclist tilting a bike.

“The control system takes measurements from the driver, such as the steering angle and speed, and tilts the vehicle to the required angle to go round the corner,” explained Mr Drew.

“It takes a little while to get used to, but once you do it feels bizarre to get back into a normal car.”

The car on display in Bath is one of five built by the EU consortium.

Three were destroyed in crash testing and the other is in Germany with car manufacturer BMW, one of the organisations involved in Clever’s development.

Although the vehicle is packed with innovations, it is unlikely to replace SUVs in the affections of urban dwellers just yet.

The prototype is purely a research project and is unlikely to come to market in its present form.

But the researchers hope that car companies may build on its ideas, and that the design may even pave the way for a new class of city vehicles somewhere between motorbikes and cars.

“You can imagine that they could re-jig the [London] congestion charge to just allow motorcycles and Clever vehicles, but not cars,” said Mr Drew.

“The idea is to showcase the vehicle and start the process of laying down the groundwork for this third way.”

The three-wheeler is the same height as a normal car.

GM’s Future Car

The Volt will still have an on-board gasoline/E85 combustion engine. Only in the Volt, this engine is the smaller one, and has only one task, it charges the battery pack when the stored power gets low. The motor is not connected to the wheels, it is only a generator. The brilliance of this feature is that you will have an overall driving range of 600-700 miles, greater than most gas cars now. The efficiency of this motor amounts to about 50 mpg, for each gallon you use to charge the batteries. The old EV-1 did not have this function. All the technology for the car is here today, except for the battery pack. It will use lithium-ion (li-ion) technology. Current hybrids use nickel-metal hydride (NiMh), which carry much less energy per unit weight. To get the power needed for the Volt they would weigh nearly a ton. There are companies working with GM and trying to get these Li-ion batteries and their packs ready for automotive use.