One of the greatest problems people have everyday is the idea of getting from point A to point B. Sure, they can easily drive their cars or take mass transit, walk if its close enough, or bike if they're in Davis. But major car industries and a rapidly growing interest now ultimately care more about how you get there.
Before the use of cars, horse drawn wagons were used to travel short distances while while Leland Stanford's trains carried people and cargo quicker than the average mule would. In 1769, the first moving vehicle was invented by Nicolas Cugnot, creating steam into kinetic energy. The final invention of the car was the giant leap society needed to improve their transportation problems. The use of cars were more convenient than waiting for a train. Henry Ford boosted the production of vehicles with assembly lines, then came the four wheel drive (power going from the engine to all four wheels at once) car from Ferdinand Porsche, which, in fact, also introduced the first gasoline-electric series-hybrid by 1900.
Even though we haven't started seeing these hybrid cars on the road until the 21st century, the ideas of Porsche seeing ahead into the future, using alternative fuels other than gasoline powered vehicles, is an aim to Utopian design; the kind of utopian design that aims to improve society in any way possible.
Vehicle technology, as we see in the next wave of new models, always aim towards utopian design. Today, solar powered vehicles and all electrical vehicles are what society is hoping major car industries would start releasing, hopefully ending the problem of oil consumption and never have to worry about the price of gasoline. But even if that ever happens, the government and car industries would for sure increase the prices just because the demand for the new utopian design would be high.
I'm glad we don't use animals as modes of transportation now. We should use humans..
ReplyDelete