An Holistic Approach

Following several meetings discussing the various collaborators views and different solutions for the pressing problem of city congestion and on-gong depletion of resources, it seems apparent that no one solution is likely to address the problem and that an holistic approach is most likely to develop integrated concepts with real life applications.
My investigations have focused primarily on vehicles and I have found a number of interesting sites on electric hub motors. Hub motors are available as a simple bolt on conversion for standard bicycles through to sophisticated applications as with this mini which uses hub motors to create a hybrid car that can achieve impressive results as shown.

http://www.pmlflightlink.com/archive/news_mini.html
http://www.pmlflightlink.com/
http://www.technologyreview.com/Biztech/18086/

Item
Original target specification
Emissions Zero
Autonomy 1500km
Top speed 200kph minimum
Acceleration 0-100kph in 6 secs
Braking No mechanical brakes
Fuel Zero carbon
BHP 250 bhp minimum

Current specification
Emissions zero for 4 hours
Autonomy 1500km
Top speed 240kph
Acceleration 0-100kph in 4.5secs
Braking No mechanical brakes
Fuel Carbon neutral option
BHP > 640 bhp


The issues with electrics are obvious however; the need for charging large banks of batteries over a long period of time may make them unattractive. Perhaps it is the charging process that should be looked at. If this mini can use regenerative braking to assist with battery charging, maybe the same process could be applied to other wasteful braking systems such as lift brakes in multistory buildings. If some key large companies that required delivery services were to collaborate to provide battery banks for small delivery vehicles, low batteries could be swaped with batteries charged from energy that would have been wasted and be providing a delivery service for the building itself. Battery technology is moving forward and smaller, faster charging efficient batteries are on the horizon.
Chris F