Widening
of roads is not possible in most of the cities and towns in India. Public
transportation can carry traffic only to a certain capacity. Traffic management and common
sense would certainly help a lot but does
not take away the traffic woes completely. No doubt, better roads would be required for
efficient and safe travel. One of the striking characteristics in Indian
traffic is diversity in vehicles. Autos and taxis are essential and cannot be
replaced. If we look at the other vehicles, most of the four-wheelers are self
driven and has no other passengers. Sitting comfort, AC and closed cabin are
mostly the reasons to adopt this mode of transfer. Two-wheeler has discomfort
of continuous balancing in busy traffic and hot sun in Indian climate always
makes riders sweat unnecessarily.
Someone
could invent an electric vehicle which considers size, cost, efficiency and
comfort of travellers by picking the best of attributes from two-wheeler and
four-wheeler.
The
vehicle should have two thick tyres and it should be self balancing. It's
width cannot be wider than half that of
Maruti 800. It should have seating capacity for only two people - front and back - and a complete
covering on the head. The closed cabin should be air conditioned. Vehicle
should be fitted with solar panels to charge the batteries. Otherwise, there
should be provision to charge the vehicle using regular electricity through
sockets.
It
should come in different colours and
should go for at least 200 km with full charge. There should be a mobile
app which shows how much charge is left and how many more kilometres can be
covered. The app should also capture travel information and show analytics
around it. Cost of the vehicle should not be more than INR 75k. Insurance should
be given for three years.
This
vehicle should help avoid using fossil fuels, produce no pollution and mostly standardise
the smaller size of vehicle on the road. The last aspect should help streamline
the traffic and also make the roads less congested.
Is
it really feasible to make everyone buy this vehicle? What happens to all the
existing ones? Well, we had tape-recorders and VCD players once. Where have
they gone?!