ISE Magazine

DEC 2017

Issue link: https://industrialengineer.epubxp.com/i/905872

Contents of this Issue

Navigation

Page 11 of 67

12 ISE Magazine | www.iise.org/ISEmagazine Could the future of electric car sharing go plastic? Industrial engineer and designer Luud Schimmelpennink is working on a 5,000-euro ($5,818) plastic machine designed specifically for the world's nascent vehicle-sharing programs. Schimmelpennink, one of ISE magazine's Engineers Who Make a Difference for 2017, has been working on alternative transportation systems, emissionless vehicles and last-mile lo- gistics for decades. While this month's cover story ("Tackling the difficult last mile," Page 28), models how to move products to customers during that last little leg of the supply chain, the same "last- mile problem" exists in public transportation, Schimmelpen- nink told ISE magazine during an interview from his Ytech Innovation Centre office in Amsterdam. Heavy and light rail are quite expensive, and even in major cities, housing can be a 15- to 20-minute walk from a subway station, Schimmelpennink said. Not everybody is fit enough to ride a bike, even in European or Asian locales with exten- sive bicycle infrastructure – much less in U.S. municipalities. A combined system with light rail, heavy rail and buses could use electrically powered shared cars to carry people along that last mile. Customers buy the ride, not the car – a concept a bit different than wildly popular ride-hailing services Uber and Lyft, where customers hire the car and driver. A small system of witkarren (the Dutch plural of witkar, which literally means "white car") operated in Amsterdam between 1974 and 1986, when Schimmelpennink was on the Amsterdam City Council. Although it served 4,000 custom- ers, political support was scant, the system never scaled up to what Schimmelpennink considers a sustainable 15 stations, and the venture ended. He is still working on plans to revive the system. Schimmelpennink has one model of his plastic Witkar reg- istered with the European Model Agency, but he is working on a more advanced version. His calculations always have shown that shared cars cost much less than heavier public transport. Current electric cars like the Biro can cost 12,000 euros ($13,963). The plastic machines would cost 58 percent less, making an inexpensive system even cheaper. Efficiency also comes into play. Cleanfleetreport.com noted News from the field The front line Dutch inventor aims for plastic fantastic transportation Although car-sharing services have grown, only about 300,000 are available worldwide Dutch inventor and engineer Luud Schimmelpennink is working on a plastic electric car in continuing efforts to revive a car- sharing system in Amsterdam.

Articles in this issue

Links on this page

Archives of this issue

view archives of ISE Magazine - DEC 2017