As a young boy a pair of cartoons really resonated with me but for very different reasons, both were funny and developed by the same team. While one looked back at a ‘modern stone age family’ the other made my young mind wonder what the future might look like. The cartoons were of course The Flintstones and The Jetsons. You have to remember that when The Jetsons was created it was 1962/3 and the future looked to be a long way off. To get a better idea of 1962 the Jetsons and The Flintsones used to be primetime television…can you imagine? Though with the success of The Simpsons I guess we’ve come full circle with cartoons being for everyone.

By the time I was hooked on The Jetsons it was more than a decade later but the vision of a future with robot maids, flying cars and houses floating in space all seemed pretty appealing and even possible to this writer when he was young. In the mid 1970′s we’d been going to the moon, creating supersonic passenger planes and had remote control toys after all so surely flying cars couldn’t be far behind. Thirty five years later however we still drive on rubber tyres using gasoline engines and sit in traffic instead of zipping around in the sky. We’re still drilling oil from the ground and using propeller planes to fly scheduled routes even if the flight is 85% empty. Most disconcerting is although high speed electric rail services are completely viable and proven, this form of transport and freight movement is actually no faster than it was in North America (for the most part) than in the 1950′s. Dashed hopes to some extent but it has taken a growing awareness of environmental matters to make us look to the future again rather than for simple reason that our technology should be tested to its furthest reaches. If only mankind had spent as much time on fuel efficiency and transportation advances in the last twenty years as we have on cell phones I’d already have my flying car by now.

So it was that I assumed cars were never going to change that significantly and resemble those Jetsons cars until I saw the video below. GM are working on what they have termed the EN-V, a small bubble shaped electric vehicle designed specifically for city living. If it seems ironic that this vision of the future comes from General Motors who have brought us the famed Hummer, perhaps the most non-green series of vehicles of the last 30 years then you’d share my sentiments. Amazing how ideas change when faced with bankruptcy.

The EN-V is wise to the fact that in urban areas the average speed of travel keeps dropping each decade due to congestion and this vehicle will only offer a proposed top speed for 24mph, but seeing as city traffic net average speed (currently 12mph) is expected to keep reducing perhaps the idea is well founded. The vehicle is the model of eco-friendly and efficient and safety is proposed as built in as the cars will be programmed to avoid one another. Its not a car you will be test driving anytime soon however, the EN-V is anticipated to be the dominant design for urban cars twenty years from now. I’m counting on the future, all will be revealed.