Meet the 'Cuter Scooter': Electric, Foldable and Affordable
by Andrew Posner, Providence, Rhode Island 
on 12.17.07
Image courtesy/MIT Smart Cities Group
We've covered MIT's innovative electric vehicle prototypes before. The City Car, for example, was designed to be "cheaply mass-produced, rented by commuters under a shared-used business model, and folded and stacked like grocery carts" in order to save space, weight and fuel. Now William J. Mitchell, along with several of his students in MIT's Smart Cities Group, has designed an electric scooter that takes affordability, lightweight and convenience to a whole new level. The prototype, dubbed the 'Cuter Scooter' by the students, was "designed to be placed throughout cities for rental, much like the bicycle rental system in some European cities." When parked, the scooters fold to half their size, saving space while the batteries are recharged.
Scooters are especially popular in Europe and Asia because of their low-cost and small size. The problem, however, is that conventional scooters are major sources of noise and air pollution (as this writer can personally attest, having lived in Southern Spain for a year). The great thing about the designs coming out of MIT is that they address more than just the fuel that powers a vehicle. After all, while Honda's new fuel cell sedan is cleaner burning and more efficient than a gasoline engine, its considerable size still requires wide roads and large tracts of land for parking.
The City Car and Cuter Scooter, on the other hand, have the potential to tackle land-use issues as well as noise and air pollution. And thanks to the scooter's simplified design, which even allows for it to be wheeled along while folded, production costs should be quite low, bringing energy and space efficient mobility to more people.
See Also: ::University of Washington to Create Electric Bike Share Program and ::The Last Mile Personal Transport
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I don't see a place for my feet.
There are posts on the side.
So once again it is a report on an 'idea' not a product.
I guess I can see these being desired in every part of the country, but the rent-ride system doesn't work well for those of us in suburbia or out on a farm.
Here is the scenerio as I see it: I live about 8 miles from work, so I rent one of these at the local supermarket. I drive it home and then the next day drive it to work. On the way home I swap it for a different one so I have a fresh charge for the next day. This little side jaunt adds about 2 miles to my daily commute. Sure it is 'only 2 miles', but that is 12.5% more miles I have to cover each day, and 12.5% more energy used.
That name is dangerously close to rhyming.
This'll make Park& Ride more fun than waiting for a bus.
I'd have to echo Ken's sentiment, the endless parade of ideas from students and contests becomes tiresome as it's all show and little actual promise. This 'idea' post though, at least is much more smartly designed to be something beyond a designers self indulgent green wet dream.
The form factor is nice of course, but the simple and effective folding combined with the modular 'shopping cart' idea is intriguing, for rental certainly but definitely as a purchasable item, as it shares some of the benefits of folding bicycles that can be handy for the apartment dweller. I can't help but wonder if companies like Zipcar would expand their operations to include transport like this in the (distant) future.
Probably just another idea that will be forgotten, but definitely one of the better ones.