SERVICES: When something happens with less effort or more fun than expected, people tend to be happy. RMI founder Amory Lovins is famous for saying that people do not want coal power plants so much as they want cold beer and hot showers. People like results and means that are inexpensive, safe and ideally do no evil (and possibly even a bit of good) along the way. Following in the footsteps of Xerox (a company that will now provide you either a copier if you insist, but prefers to provide you with copies), much of the research that has taken place within VDS has focused on services and trying to answer the question: what do people really want and how can we give it to them? Click on an image below to learn more.
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Mobi Negotiating hypothetical contracts for hypothetical distributed energy is difficult. Recently, VDS team members setup a for-profit entity that will work to make some of the demand side work of the project real. Where the VDS vehicle prototypes aim to provide a technology demonstrator (or push), we hope that Mobi can generate demand-side interest (or a consumer pull) for a bright green future. |
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During the summer of 2009, a small team of MIT students spent the summer working in Bangalore and Pune, India to build a deeper understanding of mobility needs in the developing world. VDS has been working with the aim of seeing the VDS vehicle go into production since 2007, when our teams came together for its first design review at the Delhi College of Engineering.
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Milano & Torino Training Event While out teams came together with the understanding that our primary engineering goal has been to build a vehicle with the lowest possible lifecycle, The aim of the session was to enable the tams to see their subsystems in functional rather than technical terms. Team members learned to use the MEPSS tool as well as GaBi lifecycle assessment software. VDS is grateful to Prof. Manzini for giving a particularly exceptional presentation. |
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One of VDS most successful teams from Politecnico di Milano developed a comprehensive business case for shared vehicle usage in Delhi, India. VDS is deeply indebted to Jun Lin, Lorenzo Davoli and Francesca Fiocchi, as well as their supervisor Prof. Vezzoli for their work. |
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Charging Station VDS is currently collaborating with the Media Lab’s CityCar project and MIT’s Electric Vehicle Team to design, build and test a charging station. Our primary interest is to focus on developing world applications while our collaborators are emphasizing rapid-charging capabilities. Integration with the grid is a key piece of the puzzle for any service solution. |
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