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JPods Solar-Powered Suspended Rail Vehicles May Solve Mobility Needs

As scientists and thinkers around the world ponder the problem of transporting people from their home, to where they want to go and then back home again, and doing so while using as little energy as possible, they come up with various solutions, some of which have a future, while others are mere ideas with no feasible utilization. One of the more promising alternatives are JPods, which are basically four to six seater pods suspended on an overhead rail and powered by electricity, which gathered using photovoltaic panels placed on the top part of the rail, and used up at an equivalent of 0.9 l/100km (260 US mpg).
Bill James, the man behind the project, is convinced that his autonomous pod project has a future, and thus has built a small demo version, in order to “demonstrate various operational aspects of the JPods concept,” according to gizmag.com. Bill goes on to say that "JPods provides personal on-demand mobility in commuter-range transport of people and cargo using one tenth the energy of car, passenger trains and buses. JPods cut the cost from about 56 (US) cents a mile for cars to about 4 cents a mile." He also suggests that for longer journeys an ET-type (Evacuation Tube - a tube through which specially designed pods can travel at great speeds very efficiently) would be ideal.

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