Part 2
Language in Use; summary writing
Read the article below taken from The Economist, September 30th, 2010.



Then summarize the article in about 150 words (+/- 10%).
Write on every second line on the page.
Remember to check your summary for grammatical accuracy.
(50 points)
Personal urban transport.
The bubble car is back
Cheap, small and simple—an idea from the 1950s bubbles up again
MANY car designers are convinced that a radical
change in automobile technology is going to be
needed for the crowded megacities of the future. By
2030 more than 60% of the world's population is
expected to be living in cities, up from 50% now, and
more of them will be able to afford cars. The need to
reduce emissions, an acute scarcity of land for roads
and parking, and the prospect of laws restricting
conventional cars all point to the idea that different
and smaller types of vehicle will be in demand. With
that in mind, some of those designers are coming up
with things that look a lot like a vehicle that was
familiar more than 50 years ago. Welcome to the
return of the bubble car.
Bubble cars were built to provide cheap personal
transport. Most were two-seaters with just three
wheels. They became particularly popular when fuel
prices shot up in 1956, during the Suez crisis. One of the first was the Italian-made Iso Isetta.
Germany was a prolific builder, too. Messerschmitt and Heinkel, forbidden to ply their former
trade of building military aircraft, turned to bubble cars as a peacetime alternative. BMW,
meanwhile, re-engineered the Isetta to use an engine from one of its motorcycles.
Rising incomes, falling fuel prices and changing fashions did for the original bubble cars, but
the idea seems ripe for revival and three new versions, known as EN-Vs (for Electric
Networked-Vehicles), are enthralling the crowds at the Expo 2010 in Shanghai. They can be
driven normally or operated autonomously, with their occupants doing other things while the
cars automatically avoid bumping into one another. They can also be summoned from their
parking places using a mobile phone. And instead of being powered by smoky little petrol
engines, they are driven electrically. What is most intriguing, however, is that they balance on
just two wheels.
The three EN-Vs, each with a different body shape, were built by a partnership between
General Motors (GM), an American company, and Shanghai Automotive Industry
Corporation, one of China's biggest carmakers. The two-wheeled balancing system the cars
use was developed by Segway, a firm which makes personal-transport devices used by
policemen, postmen and people who need to scoot around large corporate campuses (and
whose owner, Jimi Heselden, was killed on September 27th when he rode one of the firm's
devices over a cliff).
A balancing act
Riding a Segway personal transporter means gripping a set of handlebars while standing on a
platform positioned between two wheels. The platform is kept in what Segway describes as a
“dynamically stabilised” state. This is achieved by fitting each wheel with an electric motor
that can rotate either clockwise or anticlockwise, as appropriate. A computer controls the
resultant balancing act, using a series of motion sensors and gyroscopes. The upshot is that if
the rider leans forward he travels forward, whereas if he leans backward the machine will stop
and then go into reverse.
An EN-V is somewhat like a giant Segway, but without the handlebars. The platform, which
contains the batteries and is mounted on a sliding mechanism, forms the chassis of the
vehicle. It moves forwards when the vehicle is parked, so that it tips on to a pair of “landing
wheels” at the front. That makes it easier to get in and out, for access is from the front via a
large, transparent door—a traditional means of ingress for bubble cars. When the EN-V
powers up, the platform shifts its centre of mass back to the centre of the vehicle. The drive
wheels then rotate as necessary, to achieve both balance and propulsion.
The advantage of having only two wheels is that the car can be shrunk into a small package.
At around 1.5 metres (59 inches) long by 1.4 metres wide, an EN-V is less than half the size
of a MINI. Two wheels also allow greater manoeuvrability—an EN-V really can turn on a
dime. With a top speed of 40kph (25mph) and a range of just 40km, its performance is
limited. But average traffic speeds in many cities are already below 40kph and the EN-V's
range is well within the typical daily mileage of most urban drivers, says Chris Borroni-Bird,
GM's director of advanced vehicle concepts.
According to Dr Borroni-Bird, modern cars are over-engineered because they are designed for
use between cities, not just within cities. In low-speed urban environments, he argues, lighter
engineering can be used without compromising safety. In the case of the EN-Vs, that
philosophy translates into bodies that are made from carbon-fibre composites and doors that
are composed of polycarbonate plastics.
Automated driving, moreover, takes the EN-Vs to a new level of sophistication. The satellitebased global-positioning system provides each vehicle with its location on the Earth's surface,
to within a few centimetres. Other sensors establish its position on the road and in relation to
the rest of the traffic. These sensors include infra-red detectors, which can recognise people
and animals from their body heat (and which are already available in some cars); short-range
ultrasonic scanners to detect nearby objects when parking; long-range radars to check the road
farther ahead; and optical systems that are trained to recognise certain objects, such as cars,
motorcycles, traffic signs and road markings.
Some of the tricks used by EN-Vs come from systems developed by researchers at Carnegie
Mellon University, who used a modified GM Chevrolet Tahoe to win the 2007 Urban
Challenge. This was an event staged by America's Defence Advanced Research Projects
Agency to find vehicles that could operate autonomously alongside other traffic in a city and
perform complex manoeuvres while doing so.
The other thing that EN-Vs can do is talk to each other. So if, for instance, one EN-V detects
another by radar, it can check what that other is intending to do and agree on how to pass it
safely. Such communication also allows for “platooning”, with one or more EN-Vs tagging
along automatically behind a leader. That is a way of providing extra seating for a family
outing, say, or of carrying luggage that will not fit in the leading vehicle.
Day-to-day automated driving of this sort is, Dr Borroni-Bird admits, far into the future and
may well require new infrastructure on the roads. But in the near term he believes it is
possible to take steps towards it. The automated valet-parking feature on the EN-Vs could, for
instance, be used off public roads at places like shopping centres. Drivers would pull up at a
designated entrance, get out, and leave their vehicles to trundle off and park snugly by
themselves in a high-capacity car park. A phone call at the end of a shopping expedition
would summon the car back.
I'm forever blowing bubbles
Nor is the EN-V the only bubble car on the drawing board. Gordon Murray, who designed
racing cars for McLaren, and also its 370kph road car, is developing two tiny four-wheel cars,
one with a 660cc engine and the other with an electric motor whose batteries give it a range of
about 160km. These cars can carry three people, with the driver sitting in the middle and
passengers behind. The single door hinges forwards and upwards, so such cars can be parked
facing the pavement and close together—indeed, three of them can sit abreast in a standard
parking place.
Mr Murray's idea is not just to produce vehicles that have a low impact on the environment
but also to use a green (and cheap) manufacturing system to build them. By doing away with
big, heavy metal presses and assembling the vehicles from a simplified tubular chassis, he
thinks the cost of production could be cut to about a fifth of that in a typical car factory. He is
hoping to license both the design of the cars and their production process to other carmakers.
Renault, which is launching a range of electric cars, is also sticking to four wheels for its
smallest design, the Twizy. This will be seen at the Paris Motor Show, which opens on
October 2nd, and is due to go on sale in 2012. It will have a top speed of 75kph and a range,
with a full battery, of just under 100km. Inside, the driver and a single passenger sit in
tandem, as they would on a motorcycle. Outside, the body is made almost entirely of clear
plastic—the ultimate bubble car, perhaps.