RE: MIT's radical proposal for an ultra-compact, foldable electric vehicle
"...make 'em available to anyone that needs to get anywhere. Every vehicle would simple continually courier ppl around until it needed a charge - and automatically go charge itself."
So you want an electric taxi service without the driver? Now if this was a solid free market solution, then everything would be run by the taxi service. They are out to make money, so if this sort of idea would actually make money then they would be all over it. So if the free market doesn't already run some sort of gasoline version of this, then I suspect that this idea may cost more than the theory appears to be on paper. I am already taxed enough and can barely afford to feed my wife and kids. I don't want more taxes so I ride a car that I don't own, maintained by a government labor union. And my wife is mildly allergic to cigarette smoke, so does that mean I will have to accept that she'll have migraines every day she wants to travel out of the house? But then I suppose someone will just say that we should outlaw smoking....
Personally, I like this rental idea if it is a free market solution. We rent the carts at the airport to transport our luggage. We rent cars from the airport to get around town. Personally, I think you should keep government, both local and federal out of this. I would rather drive an Alamo ultra-compact, foldable electric vehicle, or National, or Avis, etc. They'll charge me a fee for local insurance coverage on the vehicle, or perhaps my current auto policy will cover it--my coverage already covers rental cars for personal use (not business) and we know that because we asked for a trip where we flew across half the United States to attend my cousins wedding so we then chose to opt out of the coverage the rental agency would have sold us to save some cash since we were already covered.
