i want a car pod

Driving home in the BMW the other night, I turned to look around me in the car - it's a big car. I was surrounded by all this empty space, and it was quite strange to think of myself manoevering this machine around. Kinda like being the only guy at the helm in a tank - you must get awful lonely.
Then I looked out my window and a man was waiting at the traffic light next to me in a people-carrier - one of those big soccer-mom cars. He was alone. Completely alone. Imagine all the space surrounding him.

And so I got to thinking, wasn't this a complete waste? Not only of space and energy and petrol, but of your buying power too. When you buy a car, you always end up buying it for what you MAY need it for. So a soccer mom buys her big car, but she really only carries the team once a week. And yet you can't buy smaller, because then you have a predicament when you suddently do need more space (a la smart car trying to fetch an aunt from the airport - laughable)

Hence my idea of PodCars. You buy your basic driving pod (the piece with the steering wheel etc), and thereafter you can add as many or as few as you want. So me and my handbag don't take out the full complement of car, but just the driving pod piece that I need. Going grocery shopping? I add another pod on for more space. And you could get specifically designed pods too - one for dogs, bicycles, canoes, kids - or the generic more-space-needed version. You then always have the choice of how many and what types of pods you own.

And not to take away the status that comes with any car - pods will still be designed with status in mind. An Audi pod for example, is very different from a Toyota pod. And I'm not talking about making everyone's cars look like the Smart car either - that's just ugly. They need to be decently designed like the ones we have now. Think Zaha Hadid's Z Car...

Yes, I know, the idea of having to assemble or disassemble your car after each trip is a pain, but that's a problem I'll let the car think tanks solve (maybe our garages need to be modified). Either way, I've given them the idea, they just need to perfect it.

I call it podular.

ps: great link from vanoodle which illustrates the why...