Standing for Safe Road Trains for the Environment, the SARTRE project effectively gets groups of up to eight vehicles to all drive together as if they were a connected a train. There is a “lead” vehicle, likely a bus or a truck, that is driven by a professional and this lead vehicle effectively steers and drives the other cars by way of wireless communication. The gaps between the cars are minimized (no more than four meters), which reduces drag and thus improves fuel economy. The project appears to have been quite successful, proving a concept for the future of suburban commuting.

Road trains can be integrated on conventional highways, so you don’t need as much in terms of additional infrastructure. When your car is in one of these road trains, you can kick back and relax, reading a book or playing a game on your tablet. When you get closer to your destination, you take over control of your car, pull out of the road train, and continue on to where you need to be. In this way, these autonomous vehicle trains fit somewhere between conventional single-car commuting and public transportation. It also provides that middle ground toward fully autonomous vehicles, like those being tested by Google.

The SARTRE project was led by Volvo, hence all the Volvo vehicles in the pictures, but this could just as easily be expanded to other cars too. Volvo is saying that these autonomous road trains could be on conventional highways with mixed traffic within the next ten years; the biggest hurdles are legislative. This sounds fascinating and while it won’t be a final solution for mass transit, it does look like it could be very useful in the short to middle term.

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Believe it or not, this vehicle really has nothing to do with the golden arches and you probably won’t be able to super size it with a Diet Coke. Strange name aside, the Geely McCar might actually provide a novel solution to the urban commuter.

You see, it’s not just a car; it’s also an electric scooter… sort of. The Geely McCar (short for Magic Car) will look not unlike the Fiat 500 or Toyota Yaris from the outside, but this two-door ultracompact has a built-in folding three-wheel scooter out the back.

The car itself (being proposed as either a hybrid or a full electric) will seat four people and when it is on the road, the car will share its juice to keep the scooter charged up for when you need it. I imagine this could be great for carpooling if one out of the three passengers, not including the driver, has to go somewhere else.

I don’t think a Geely McCar would fly in North America, but slap on the recently acquired Volvo brand name to go with a new model name and you could have a winner for urban commuters. Assuming, of course, that the Big Mac population isn’t too fat to weigh down the McScooter that comes as part of the McCar. You’ll also probably have to stop and do a bit of manual undocking to get the scooter apart, rather than an in-transit transformer-like separation as we may have hoped for.

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Electric vehicles are well and good if you have the time and infrastructure to charge them. In the meantime, plug-in hybrids could serve as a clever middle ground, and that’s precisely what we’re finding with a new Volvo V60 set to be unveiled at the Geneva Auto Show.

Yes, it’s still a boring old Volvo on the outside, despite the “naughty” claims that the Swedish automaker is trying to attach to this series. Under the hood (or rather throughout the car), though, you’ll find more than a few Swedish delights. There’s a perfectly capable 2.4L five-cylinder turbodiesel in there, capable of generating 215hp.

However, the greener folks in the audience are likely more interested in the 70hp electric motor mounted on its backside. Power comes by way of a 12kWh Li-ion battery that gives you about 50km of range on a full charge. That’s on par with the Volt.

I’m not at all convinced that these PHEVs are the wave of the future, but at least the automakers are finally making some headway in taking us away from drill, baby, drill.

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What does it take to shock the world? The answer is simple: innovation. And when it comes to innovation in the automobile sector, Volvo, arguably stands apart.

At the LA Auto Show, Volvo came up with a vehicle concept that may seem bizarre to some, cool to many and splendid to most. Yes, we are talking about the Air Motion Concept – a nearly 1000 pound four seater enclosed in a carbon-fiber clamshell. Alright, you may ask, so what exactly does it use? An eco-friendly gas kit? An electric motor? Actually, neither! The Air Motion Concept runs on a tank full of compressed air. And it doesn’t stop there, as Volvo even went as far as proposing wind-powered refueling stations in order to ensure that the power for the Air Motion Concept is borne solely out of thin air. Okay, in my opinion the last bit indeed sounds a tad bit exaggerated.

To quote from Volvo, the idea behind the Air Motion Concept is to minimize “weight and complexity while maximizing driver enjoyment.” Not a bad one indeed!

They surely have started on the right track as far as minimizing of complexity is concerned. The pneumatic engine doesn’t quite heat up as much as regular combustion ones (so this means you may, as well, bid farewell to all your radiator woes). The trade-off shall lie in the resulting limited range possibility, but that seems plausible enough as long the as pneumatic engine delivers all that is expected out of it.

Volvo did not bother providing any performance stats, so the ultimate output is anyone’s guess. But lightweight cars are, more often than not, well loved by drivers and the Air Motion Concept should be no exception. Giving it a spin shall surely be a joy ride, to say the least. Other air powered cars exist on the market today, but Volvo’s concept looks a bit more “sporty” and sadly something we won’t see for another decade.

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