The Short-flight Alternative

The Budget Airline Car is an EV alt-shuttle seating six adults, with luggage storage in each door.

Short-haul airline flights can be a great convenience for travelers, but they produce more CO2 emissions - about 250 g/km per person - than any other form of passenger transportation, including compact EVs and electric trains. That's about 25% more emissions than long-haul flights, because short-hop flying uses proportionately more fuel at takeoff and landing. Could an automotive alternative offer a solution?

That is what Car Design Research (CDR), a U.K.-based consultancy, set out to investigate, working with design associates Yichen Shu in China and Aditya Jangid in India. The resulting concept is the Budget Airline Car, one of six new passenger-vehicle types that CDR director Sam Livingston and his team feel would be enabled by new mobility technologies.