The document discusses potential transportation technologies and options that may exist by the year 2050. Some of the concepts discussed include solar powered vehicles, shape shifting cars, augmented reality in vehicles, fully autonomous vehicles, high speed maglev trains, flying cars, amphibious vehicles, evacuated tube transport systems, electric aircraft, commercial spaceflight, airborne metros, and vehicles with negative carbon footprints. The technologies described aim to address the increasing global population and demand for transportation through more efficient, customized, and sustainable transportation solutions.

1. Technology
Fast forward:
Transit in 2050
(Ratna Chatterjee is an R&D Management and innovation professional with over 29 years of Entrepreneurial and
Corporate experience in working with the automotive industry. Currently she is the Chief Consultant at ARDMC
(Automotive R&D Management Consultants), with offices in New Delhi, US and UK. )
By the year 2050, the world’s
population will reach nine
billion. The demand on the
world’s resources - will be
severe. But the road from
now to then isn’t bleak - there
is a lot of activity in trying
to define a path to a future
filled with opportunities, from
amazing individuals and with
extraordinary projects leading
the way. The concepts for 2050
being worked out for travel
are fascinating – and some
design studios around the world
started visualising mobility
2050 concepts more than a
decade ago, showcasing some
intriguing possibilities and some
revolutionary ideas!
ROAD TO THE FUTURE ......
TRAVEL OPTIONS BY 2050
A city in 2050 could be quite
different from the urban setting
of today. New technologies are
creating new alternatives for urban mobility—
from smaller and more efficient cars, to transit
systems and new information technologies.
In future, the car will function as a pilot,
co-pilot and coach all rolled into one. The
car works out alternative routes and ensures
that the occupants can make meaningful
use of their time even when stuck in traffic
jams, to catching up on office work, or simply
relax. More than ever, transportation will be
customised to meet the individual wants
of their occupants - with new technologies,
smarter road use and new ways to commute
on the road and in the air. Some of the
alternatives to conventional transport in the
future include:
Solar Powered Vehicles: Harnessing solar
energy to power cars makes sure that the
26 October 2012 / Motown India
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2. Technology
electricity grid of the future isn’t burdened.
Industrial designers have been helping
automakers with some stunning concept
vehicles that harness solar energy on the
move, an approach which also betters the
performance of the vehicle. The newly
developed SolarWorld “Gran Turismo”
clears the path towards a solar-powered
future currently on a mission to cover
35,000 km by December 2012 - running
completely without fuel and externally
provided electricity. SolarWorld AG believes
“In the future, millions of vehicles will be
electrically operated. They will not have
28 October 2012 / Motown India
their own on-board power plant like the
SolarWorld GT, but they can be recharged
with Sun-Carports or with the solar power
plant on your own roof.”
Shape Shifting Cars: Replacing internal
combustion engines with silent electric
motors allows designers to come up with
concept vehicles that can change their
shape according to conditions. If stuck in a
traffic jam, these vehicles can reduce their
size for better maneuverability and if speed
and performance are desired, they can
alter their shape accordingly. While design
concepts
have been
showcased
by all the
Automotive
OEMs in the
past years, it is
“Hiroko” that
is ready for
production
next year.
“Hiroko” started
as the ‘CityCar
project’, part
of a larger
initiative at the
MIT Media Lab’s
‘Smart Cities
research group’
- devoted to
investigating
the urban
mobility
systems. The
CityCar is
a foldable,
electric,
sharable, two-passenger vehicle for
crowded cities. Wheel Robots—fully
modular in-wheel electric motors—
integrate drive motors, suspension,
braking, and steering inside the hub-space
of the wheel. This drive-by-wire system
requires only data, power, and mechanical
connection to the chassis. With over
80 degrees of steering freedom, Wheel
Robots enable a zero-turn radius; they also
enable the CityCar to fold by eliminating
the conventional engine and drive-train.
Being commercialised by a consortium
of automotive suppliers in the Basque
region of Spain, it has been branded as the
“Hiroko” Project, which stands for Urban
Car.
Augmented Reality: Imagine a future in
which icons flash on your car windshield,
hologram style, as your car approaches
restaurants, stores, historic landmarks or
the homes of friends. Simply point your
hand at them, and the icons open to show
real-time information: when that bridge
over there was built, what band is playing
at that nightclub on the left, whether
that new café up the street has any tables
available. Wave your hand again, and
you’ve made a restaurant reservation. BMW
has already implemented a windshield
display in some of their vehicles which
displays basic information, but they’re
also developing augmented reality (AR)
dashboards that will be able to identify
objects in front a vehicle and tell the driver
how far they are away from the object.
The AR display will overlay information on
top of what a driver is seeing in real life.
Mercedes-Benz showed off their vision
of the future of driving -- complete with
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3. Technology
augmented-reality and gesturecontrolled features -- this January at
the International Consumer Electronics
Show.
Completely Autonomous Driving:
We already know about the driverless
cars using autonomous driving
technologies. Automotive analysts
say the next step is for the car to
not just drive autonomously, but to
think autonomously - because every
road will be equipped with wireless
communication sensors, and cars
with LIDAR (Light Detection And
Ranging) sensors, you can sit back and
relax while the car drives. The car will
understand the driver’s cognitive and
emotional load at all times and control
what type of information and how
much of it can be consumed by the
driver at a given time, and will selforganize and optimize traffic flow with
the result of minimized congestion and
A handful of maglev
trains already exist in
Asia and Europe, and
several new projects
may be in the works.
“SkyTran” is a concept for
high-capacity and highspeed personal rapid
transport developed by
an American Company
UniModal Transport
Solutions. The “SkyTran”
system is two-passenger
vehicles, propelled and
suspended by maglev
systems. Finland’s
improved productivity. It will be a thinking
system, which is actively monitoring
the environment and adjusting the car’s
response, sometimes minutely, to ensure
that the driver stays within the collisionfree safety region. “Autonomous robotic
vehicle” prototypes have been tested at
MIT’s Robotic Mobility Group.
Maglev Vehicles: Magnetic levitation
(maglev) can create frictionless, efficient,
far-out-sounding technologies. While
regular high-speed trains can travel at
180 miles per hour, maglev trains reach
speeds faster than 300 miles per hour while
hovering a few inches above the rail. By
eliminating friction, maglev trains use less
energy and can significantly reduce costs.
30 October 2012 / Motown India
EV components exposed on the body, the
Dawn was arguably one of the most talked
about concepts at this year’s show. The
Volkswagen “Hover Car” is the first glimpses
of a possible future in urban mobility - an
environment-friendly two-seater vehicle
designed to float above the road using
MagLev technology. It also has distance
sensors that keep you from colliding with
other vehicles on the road.
Flying Cars: Inventors, innovators,
engineers, and everyone in between have
been working to make the flying car dream
a reality for many years now. Terrafugia, a
Massachusetts company has been working
Valmet
Automotive,
a leading
auto industry
service
provider,
choose the
2012 Geneva
autoshow to
debut their
futuristic
“Dawn EV
Concept”.
Featuring a
hovercraft-like
appearance
and with its
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4. Technology
making it possible to land practically
anywhere. However, these concepts are
still far away from the ‘ideal’ vision of a
flying car – one which can ply the roads
and do vertical take-offs during traffic
jams!
Amphibious Vehicles: Amphibious
vehicles have never really taken off due
to a wide range of factors such
as cost, rust, practicability and
the issue of what the cars would
run on above and below the sea
line. There have been several
attempts made to address the
balance by two companies
Rinspeed and Gibbs, leading
to amphibious cars being
created and experimented
with. Rinspeed based its latest
“sQuba” concept on the modern Lotus Elise
to create the world’s first real submersible
amphibious car. Capable of diving to
depths of 10m (after you open the doors
to allow water in), “sQuba” passengers
receive oxygen through an integrated tank
of compressed air. The Gibbs “Phibian”,
revealed in February 2012 is the biggest,
most versatile amphibious vehicle ever
created – capable of travelling on road and
on water. It’s an off-road diesel-powered
truck, built of super-strong, super-light
carbon fiber, that can reach speeds of up
to 80 miles per hour on land, and then roll
into the a lake, river or even the ocean and
cruise along the surface at 45 miles per
hour.
Evacuated Tube Transport: An American
engineer Daryl Oster, holds the patent for
the “Evacuated Tube Transport (ET3)” - an
airless, frictionless, form of transportation.
Six-person capsules travel in the tubes and
can reach a maximum speed of 6,500 km/h,
and provide 50 times more transportation
per kwh. A tube can travel from New York to
Beijing in two hours, and make a round-theworld trip in just six hours. The ET3 vision
is ‘Space Travel on Earth’ with a global
Evacuated Tube Transport (ETT) network
offering clean, lightning fast, almost free,
recliner comfort transport for 90% of
people and goods by the year 2030.
All-Electric Aircraft: German aerospace
on flying car concepts for many years, and
it’s latest creation - the “Transition” is a
two-seat airplane with foldable wings, four
wheels and turn signals which is actually
a ‘street legal airplane’. Recently, a Dutch
company was able to successfully build and
test its flying car prototype in April 2012,
the Personal Air and Land Vehicle “PAL-V
ONE” - a two seat hybrid car and gyroplane.
On the ground this slim, aerodynamic,
3-wheeled vehicle has the comfort of a
car with the agility of a motorcycle thanks
to its patented ‘tilting’ system. It can be
driven to the nearest airfield and take off
just like any other airplane. The single rotor
and propeller are unfolded to make the
PAL-V ONE ready to fly. The PAL-V ONE has
a very short take off and landing capability,
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5. Technology
research institution Bauhaus Luftfahrt
last month released details of its concept
for a zero-emissions 190-seat aircraft
which could potentially enter service
in 2035. Designated the “Ce-Liner”, the
aircraft would rely on twin electric engines
supplied by a bank of up to 16 battery
containers. Bauhaus Luftfahrt says forecasts
on battery technology suggest a 600
nautical miles (1,110km) range should
be achievable by 2030. The aircraft’s
configuration improves aerodynamic
efficiency through a non-planar ‘C-wing’,
increasing performance without
compromising wingspan limitations.
Bauhaus says : “the design goes far
beyond current all-electric flight concepts.
launched from Virgin
Galactic’s proven
“WhiteKnightTwo”,
the uniquely
capable aircraft also
designed to carry
“SpaceShipTwo”
aloft to begin
her suborbital
missions. The first
“WhiteKnightTwo”
(Eve) is fully
constructed and
is nearing the end
of her flight test
program, as she
approaches her
100th test flight
and has a proven
capability for
rapid call up
and launch-ondemand, having
successfully
completed
captive carry
missions with
“SpaceShipTwo”
with
turnarounds as quick as twenty-four
hours. At the designated point in space
and time, “LauncherOne” will be released
from “WhiteKnightTwo” at an altitude of
approximately 50,000 feet above mean sea
level.
Airborne Metro: The “Airborne Metro”
concept developed for the Advisory
Council for Aeronautics Research in
Europe (ACARE) envisages very large ‘Air
Cruisers’ - ultimately nuclear-powered that would stay aloft semi-permanently.
Recharging the batteries during turnaround
still remains challenging, hence an
exchange after each flight is assumed”. The
electric motors and power-transmission
wiring would include high-temperature
superconducting technology, raising the
power-to-weight ratio.
Commercial Spaceflight: On 3rd August
2012, NASA announced that it will shell out
more than $1 billion to develop commercial
spaceships for Americans. The investment
is part of the newly signed Space Act
agreement through NASA’s Commercial
Crew Integrated Capability (CCiCap)
initiative, which was put in place to spur
commercial spaceflight and commercial
customers into space. However Virgin
Galactic pre-empted NASA by announcing
their plans for “LauncherOne” in July 2012
- a new air-launched rocket specifically
designed to deliver small satellites into
orbit by 2016. “LauncherOne” will be a
two-stage vehicle capable of carrying up
to 225 kilograms to orbit. The rocket will be
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6. Technology
As these long-range
cruisers continually fly
looping tracks that cross
oceans and take them
over major population
centers, shorter-range
aircraft would bring up
passengers and cargo that
would ride on the cruiser
until they reach their
destinations, where they
would transfer to other
short-range aircraft and
fly down to land. Taking
off from conventional
airports, flying to and
landing on the cruiser,
the transport would be
optimized for take-off,
climb and landing, with
no need to cruise. The
travelers would hop
aboard smaller passenger
planes, dock with a larger
cruiser aircraft that would
loop endlessly through
the sky above major
airports, carrying vast
numbers of passengers
– in the region of 3,000 – to their
destinations. In order to power these large
sky-cruisers, low-energy nuclear reaction
(LENR) technology could potentially be
utilized.
Negative Carbon Footprint: The SAIC
“YeZ” concept has its futuristic visions set
in 2030 with a negative carbon footprint.
The YeZ Concept photosynthesizes - by
absorbing carbon dioxide from the air and
emits oxygen back into the atmosphere.
“YeZ” takes electricity as its main source of
power, and at the technical core is natural
energy conversion, which includes the
photoelectric conversion, wind power
conversion, carbon dioxide absorption
and conversion technology. The huge
leaf on the roof of the “YeZ” is an efficient
photoelectric converter, and the flow of
energy is visible through the ‘veins’. The
solar crystal films on the leaf are able to
rotate towards the sun for higher efficiency
of solar energy collection, and the four
wheels are wind power generators. The
body of the “YeZ” is made of MOF (metalorganic framework), which is able to absorb
carbon dioxide. Simulating green plants,
it captures carbon dioxide and water
molecules in the air, releases electrons
under the action of microorganisms, and
generates electric current. This helps
to achieve not only ‘zero emission’, but
also ‘negative emission’, so that the air is
cleaned, and the natural environment is
improved.
Really Alternative Fuels: The future
car will be capable of running on
multiple fuel sources. Toyota has already
produced a version of the Prius that uses
electric power, gas, and solar panels.
Biofuels offer many of the same benefits
as carbon based/kerosene-like fuels and
every transport system could use them
immediately without having to change
the infrastructure. Airbus is developing
second generation biofuels - known as
biomass. Some options being looked at
include algae, woodchip waste, camelina,
halophytes, waste produce and yeast. If
biofuels can be produced in sufficient
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7. Technology
quantities for commercial use, Airbus
believes that they could provide up to 30%
of all commercial aviation jet fuel by 2030.
NASA has an ongoing research project
trying to figure out how to beam energy
down from solar collectors in space, such
that vehicles could then collect and use this
technology for their energy needs.
ADVANCED CONCEPTS : 2050 ….
By the year 2050, in Airbus’ vision of the
“futuristic” flying machine, the Airbus
Concept Cabin includes “bionic” design,
panoramic views, and customizable zones
to satisfy even the most demanding of
passengers. Tapping into some of the most
cutting-edge design thinking today, the
aviation leader has developed a concept
plane that is an innovation - which they
hope resembles the real Airbus models of
2050, and takes biomimicry as a guiding
principle for the design of forms and
materials. The most noticeable aspect
of this is in the fuselage, composed of a
web-like network of structural material
- inspired by the bone structure of birds.
36 October 2012 / Motown India
For the cabin’s electrical system, Airbus
intends to integrate a brain-like “network
of intelligence” into the walls of the plane,
which is responsive to interior climate
conditions and passenger needs. The
seats of the plane will be composed of
plant-based biomaterials with smart
materials that form to and remember
the body’s optimal position. Of course all
of the aspects of physical comfort and
wellness will find their way into the in-flight
experience, too, in the form of interactive
zones, where travellers can socialize, play
games, exercise and enjoy various holistic
treatments like massage and aromatherapy.
In the Airbus Concept Cabin, “personalised
zones” will offer several tailored levels
of experience - the “smart tech zone,”
the “vitalizing zone” (with ‘vitamin and
antioxidant enriched air’ and ‘mood
lighting, aromatherapy and acupressure
treatments’), and an “interactive zone” (with
‘virtual pop up projections’). And best of
all, your personal cabin will transform into
your very own transportation capsule to
continue your onward journey on the road,
or in the air as you
disembark the plane.
The Acabion GTBO
VIII da Vinci concept
is a vacuum tubebased mass transport
system, capable of
travelling at speeds
of 20,000 km/h.
The Swiss company
Acabion envisages a
global network that
would let users circle
the globe in less than
two hours. This fully
electric vehicle would
have a top speed of
600 km/h - thanks to
its reduced projected
area, turbulence
and aerodynamic
drag, weight and
rolling resistance.
The company
anticipates that, due
to the streamliner’s
speed potential, by
2050 new elevated
roadways will be
needed. For long
continental and
intercontinental
journeys Acabion
envisages a global
network of maglevdriven vacuum tubes,
called the “traffic internet”, which will make
it possible to travel at the projected speeds.
Such a network would not only cross land,
but also stretch through oceans, making a
30 minute commute from New York to Paris
a reality. Additionally, the vehicles wouldn’t
rely on their own battery packs for power
but would draw their energy inductively
from the roads themselves, which would be
supplied with 100 percent solar power.
Obayashi Corp. in February 2012 outlined
its plans to build a Space Elevator by 2050
- that would take its occupants just over
seven days to reach its destination to a
terminal station located 36,000 km above
Earth. Obayashi’s plan involves sending a
cable into space - one end of which would
be fixed to the ground around which a
spaceport would be built, while the other
would be fitted with a counterweight.
The elevator, containing up to 30 people
and traveling at a speed of 200 km/h,
would be powered using magnetic linear
motors. Obayashi said that such a feat has
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8. Technology
is elastically adjustable and
capable of adapting itself
to various applications
and meeting different user
requirements. The SheLL
will also connect seamlessly
to buildings and public
facilities by way of what
is expected to become
a standard interface for
vehicles - a docking station
so it can supplement the
home or office with another
working or living space. In
other words, you can park
your car directly against
the wall of buildings, thus
saving parking space on
the ground and improving
the traffic situation, whilst
at the same time increasing
work/home facilities
wherever you’re going.
been made possible thanks to the 1991
discovery of carbon nanotubes, which are
20 times stronger than steel, which would
be used to produce the cables for the
space elevator. The idea of a space elevator
is not as farfetched as it might initially
sound, with other organizations, such as
the US National Aeronautics and Space
Administration, taking an interest in such a
project.
EADS, a European aerospace company,
has worked on a Hypersonic Rocketplane :
the ZEHST, which stands for “Zero Emission
Hypersonic Transportation” - a concept
to reawaken a collective imagination
that has been dreaming of a return to
supersonic flight. The hybrid rocketplane
will be powered by biofuels made from
seaweed while under the Ozone layer and
switch to rocket engines once it rises above
the ozone, technically making it a zeroemission plane. With a cruising altitude
of 20 miles, it will be able to travel from
Paris to Tokyo in 2.5 hours at mach 4, a
flight that takes about 12 hours today. The
plane’s trajectory is very specific in order to
minimize the sonic boom during climbing
and descent, and by flying at approximately
30 kilometers there will be no acoustic
impact at ground level. EADS hopes to have
a prototype plane built by 2020 and have
the plane enter service around 2050.
at a far higher premium than now, be it
on public roads, for parking, or simply as
a cost-efficient investment in a car-sized
footprint in a city. So SAIC’s SheLL concept
is exploring what else can be done with an
automobile to make it more useful when
you’re not driving it, and what other roles
it can fulfill when it is parked. SheLL is not
only an automobile, it also transforms into
a bedroom, office and gymnasium. SAIC has
applied elastic membrane technology to
the vehicle’s bodywork, so that the vehicle
In closing…
While looking at the future vehicles in
development through the ideas that are
being openly and formally discussed by
manufacturers, we’re looking at innovations
that are still in the process of being made
and optimistic forecasts of when they
might be available in the near- and nottoo-distant future. However, innovations
are always subject to change, and the
vehicles may not always reach production
as visualized in the concepts !
AND SOME ‘FUTURISTIC VISIONS’ ….
The SAIC SheLL concept is set for 2050
in an environment where urban space is
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