Sometimes concepts cars are utter flights of fancy. Sometimes, they are only slightly ahead of their time. The 2000 Citroën Osmose is kind of a mixture of both. What is so interesting about this particular concept isn’t so much the vehicle itself (although it is pretty far out there), but idea of a ride sharing service that was presented along with the car.
Long before “social media” or “ride sharing” were even things, in 2000 Citroën had come up with the idea of utilizing the extra capacity in your car to transport strangers, all coordinated by mobile phones, no less. As envisioned by Citroën, the process would have worked something like this:
Your Osmose would have an electronic signboard on the side, with which you could signal to pedestrians your destination and willingness to take passengers. Riders could also use their phone to locate an Osmose headed to their destination, or at least in their general direction. Either way, once the car pulled up, the rider pushed a button on the car to alert the driver, and hopped in. That’s it.
Citroën’s vision of ride sharing clearly owed a lot to contemporary taxi cabs, where one would hail a car at streetside that happened to be passing by and going your way. There was no concept of making special trips just to take passengers or going out of your way to pick them up: Riders are no more than guests that tag along to where you happen to be going.
Most automakers’ visions of the future tend to be somewhat utopian, and Citroën’s was no different. Notably missing is any mention of compensation to the driver for said ride sharing services. Instead, their vision appears to be ride sharing in the most literal sense, relying on a “pay it forward” model where the ride I give today will be paid back by a ride someone else gives me tomorrow. No mention is made in this idyllic future of Uber drivers sleeping in their cars, or commuting for hours to take advantage of surge pricing.
Citroën missed a few other things as well. To assuage turn of the century drivers of stranger danger, “hitch hikers” (as Citroen’s press release referred to them) rode in two rear facing seats in a separate compartment, completely isolated from their driver by a bulkhead and glass (I’m sure there are modern Uber riders and drivers that wish this part had come true). Not mentioned: The possibility of using this compartment as an isolation chamber for noisy kids or in-laws.
As to the car itself, aside from the styling it was somewhat conventional. It was powered by a hybrid electric powertrain (still somewhat of a novelty in 2000), capable of running in electric-only mode for cities with emission restricted zones. It featured exterior pedestrian airbags to further bolster its urban-friendly cred. Sliding doors on either side afforded access to the front passenger compartment, with a centrally located drivers seat. Rear passengers entered through the hatchback, which appeared to open using some sort of clamshell arrangement to eliminate a tailgate.
Still, you have to give Citroen credit for putting forward the then fanciful idea of ride sharing. They got the broad strokes of the coming age shared mobility right, even if they missed some of the details. The idea of people using their vehicles to share rides with strangers had to seem preposterous in 2000, but it turned out to be surprisingly prescient.
Related:
Jim Klein participated in two types of sharing services in the Bay Area, and has written up his experiences here:
Casual Carpool: Your Mother Would Not Approve
COAL: 1998 Honda GX: I Was An Early Car-Sharing Guinea Pig
I must have missed this one back in 2000. Yes, casual ride sharing, a variation on hitchhiking, is not likely to make it to the big time, although there are a few small-scale efforts along these lines.
I do think the sealed rear compartment is just what is needed, although it probbaly wouldn’t get a lot of positive reviews, which is so critical in today’s social media.
One of the few car designs where both ends look like the rear of the car.
Utopian visions unravel into Dystopian realities, and 17 years later…. yeah, kinda. The endgame to the current state of ride sharing is autonomous, and sooner than later any notion of “getting your side-hustle on” will literally go out the window from the driver standpoint as the companies just purchase their own fleets of driverless cars to send out to make bigger profits, effectively settling as high tech taxi service in all but name. People actually driving cars and getting rewarded karma points as Citroen envisioned? Idyllic is definitely the word.
The design itself doesn’t look as radical as the concept of it to me though. The early 2000s was really when retro was the hot design language, and this pretty well captures the basic look of the tall stubby early 20th century electrics in the same way the New Beetle captured the look of the original.
Um….no.
Some of those shots look like the car was airbrushed in. For some strange reason they remind me of the movie ” Who Framed Roger Rabbit?”.
Most of these pictures are renderings, not photos.
I understand that they are renderings, but the people look like actual photographs to me, thus the Roger Rabbit reference.
As a long time resident of the Washington, DC area, I find it funny that the ride sharing concept of the Osmose was seen as futuristic, because in 2000 it already existed here as a regular part of the commuting scene. For over two decades, there has been a “slug” system in which passengers queue at prearranged points in the suburbs to ride downtown in the cars of anonymous strangers in the morning rush hour, then do the same in reverse from downtown to the suburbs in the evening. Passengers get free rides; drivers get bodies that allow them to use the high occupancy vehicle lanes that can significantly speed up their commutes. Slug etiquette has evolved to determine that passengers are just bodies and are not allowed to talk, ask for music or other radio to be played, or do anything else that the driver does not dictate, hence the name “slugs” for them. The arrangement predates mobile phones and does not rely on them, but there are now apps for determining where and when rides will be available, which fills the last missing technological detail of the Osmose scheme.
I have never lived in a place where slugging was an option, so I have never experienced it myself. I find the idea to be awful, for both riders and drivers. It shows what bad commuting situations will drive people to do.
Car sharing would make sense to me only if I knew the other sharers. No way would I have a complete stranger in my car, unfortunately there are just too many crazies around these days.
This kind of bunker mentality really doesn’t help anyone. “too many crazies” where exactly? How many real live strangers have you actually spoken to this month? The vast majority of people are just people.
As a transportation planner for a regional planning agency in the mid seventies I drew up a car sharing proposal that, at the time, I thought of as unique to the 1st world, although I was aware of 3rd world variants. It was aimed strictly at the commuting function, particularly for sparsely populated areas (this was Vermont) where bus systems were entirely uneconomic. It involved bus-type shelters at strategic points where potential passengers could wait, paid for with tax dollars, plus registration, screening and bonding of drivers (using their own cars) by the state. Fares were not regulated.
The legislature shot it down.
Another example of being too rich, too fearful, too bureaucratic to be able to address real needs that less “sophisticated” areas are able to accomplish readily.