Custom electric carpooling offers affordable transport alternative

Spiri’s custom electric car fleet will offer car pooling at public transport prices, with drivers traveling for free.

Car pooling has emerged as a solution to reducing urban traffic congestion, with examples even including an Italy-based scooter-sharing scheme. Denmark-based Spiri is looking to further expand the concept by using their own custom vehicles.

Spiri have designed an ultra-lightweight, electric vehicle for effective urban transport. The full design of Spiri will be revealed at TechBBQ on September 20 but the company promises it will use half the energy of a normal car and only a quarter of the parts. The drive begins with a user picking up one of the cars, inputting their destination and then picking up others that need to follow the same route. This is similar to the way UberPOOL works and also uses a hailing app that tracks vehicle locations. The difference with Spiri is that the driver receives a free ride so long as they pool. Passengers will pay prices comparable to public transport costs. Spiri are aiming to launch the scheme in 2017 as a gateway towards encouraging the use of driverless cars and making car ownership redundant.

Could driverless car concepts include office-style features that enable commuters to work while they travel?