CDR designs car to replace short-haul flights

The Budget Airline Car from Car Design Research is a concept for a large, super-efficient, low-cost electric car as a more sustainable alternative to high-emissions short-haul aircraft flights.
Car Design Research (CDR) has conceived what it says could be a new future car type to replace budget airline travel. During the coronavirus lock-down in 2021, a team at the UK-based design consultancy, which says it has worked with 11 design groups of the top 20 car companies over the last 20 years — was discussing unrealized opportunities for car design.

They came up with six new car types that would be enabled by new technologies. One of these focused on being an alternative to the short-haul flight, which became the Budget Airline Car concept, would produce only 2% of the emissions per passenger compared to a short-haul flight.

As the COVID pandemic continues to make being surrounded by hundreds of strangers unappealing, and as connected, autonomous, shared, and electric technologies come to the fore, the Budget Airline Car illustrates how a new type of car design could be a better solution for millions of passengers a year.

CDR says that concept could be a possible mobility solution as governments ban or restrict short-haul flights, as they already have in Austria, France, and the Netherlands. It could be for the many people who don’t want to travel by what it says is the most environmentally damaging form of transport — the short-haul aircraft flight.

The core concept was developed by CDR design associates