The Next Fossil Fuel: With the HumanCar, It's You

The HumanCar, an alternative method of moving people around The HumanCar is an alternative vehicle utilizing “variable human-electric” hybrid power.

HumanCar is the brainchild of inventor Charles Greenwood and his team with more than 30 years of experience of visionary innovation in alternative transportation solutions.

According to their website, HumanCar plans to roll-out Imagine, the latest design of Greenwood’s technology, on Earth Day 2008.

I’m fortunate enough to have the option of not owning a car, with my ability to conduct the major portion of my daily life mostly walking, with an occasional bus, light rail, or cab ride (and yes, the cab option isn’t that green). On the rare occasion when I do need a car, San Francisco now provides several “urban car share” options like ZipCar or, the one I use, CityCarShare.

HumanCar is not intended to replace the car, any more than ZipCar or CityCarShare. It is a visionary alternative with specific applications that augment the urban transportation model – which in many places is mostly broken.

In my research for this post, one of the principal criticisms of HumanCar is that it’s just an expensive toy that doesn’t contribute any more than a gee-whiz alternative to the bicycle. Just get a bike.

HumanCar’s response to this as stated in their faq page:

Reynolds gave us one of the greatest invention of all time. But if you need to carry a thousand pounds, or maybe you want to have a lot of fun with you friends, then you can do that with the FM-4. A lot of people don't get the full body workout they are looking for on a bicycle, so there's that too. But we still ride ours regularly.

I have no personal experience with the HumanCar (nor do I ride a bike). What excites me about HumanCar is the potential for innovative alternatives to unsustainable transportation models.

This world full of multi-ton vehicles powered with oil burning internal combustion engines started with a handful of crude prototypes. Silly looking things whose inventors claimed where the next alternative to animal-powered transportation. Crazy inventors!

Look at the world they have wrought. One not even they envisioned.

Who knows what is next. But change is certain. HumanCar might help carry us there.