“Oh!” you may say, thinking the Cargo scooter/moped concept by designer Elliot Ortiz is craziness exemplified. But listen: mopeds are a good solution in many places across the world, taking up less road space than cars and being cheap to run. One thing they lack is load-bearing abilities, and that’s what Elliot’s design is supposed to fix. Taking a few design cues from the classic Vespa, it’s got that huge hole in the chassis which allows you to sling narrow loads inside. There’s even a DHL scooter concept in the gallery. I can’t help but wonder about stability of the thing, but it’s a neat bit of lateral thinking. Should it remain a concept? What do you think, guys? [Tuvie via Techeblog]
Rhys
Thursday, July 3, 2008 at 8:42 AMThe basic idea is ok. As a former motorcycle courier (10 years) I can tell you that two wheeled freight has plenty of potential, but the ‘standard’ bike or scooter design is all wrong for it (it was originated by people who rode horses, not people starting with a clean sheet).
Unfortunately this design has no provision for power (even if it’s electrically driven the batteries need space, and alternate power supplies are not yet space efficient).
It doesn’t make much sense dynamically either – it would only work well with heavy freight. The rest of the time the weight of the vehicle is carried at the extremities, which is exactly the opposite to current motorcycle design trends.