Simple, UC?

Bespoke design and tuning house Rinspeed will use the 2010 Geneva motor show to roll out a radically simple means of extending EV range -- the marriage of cars with trains.

The range limitations of pure electric drive technologies have seen them largely restricted to the role of short-haul urban commuter. Extending their applicability beyond the inter-suburban shops-school-work axis has so far required the addition of a small petrol engine, in the plug-in hybrid manner of GM's Volt and the Fisker Karma.

Some clever lateral thinking on Rinspeed's part has resulted in the UC? (the name includes the question mark, adding rhetorical flourish to an acronym for Urban Commuter). This is not just a car -- it's a smart and potentially cost-effective car-plus-infrastructure solution.

Cost-effective because the idea is simple. A tiny 2.5 metres long, it bears little of the distinctive bodywork for which its maker is famous, blending invisibly in among other city tinies like the smart fortwo and the Toyota iQ.

There's not much around at the moment in the way of technical specs -- Rinspeed will make more available in February, in the lead-up to the car's debut at the Geneva motor show. But where the concept veers off into the radical is outside the car.

Buying in gets you a spot on special railcars that tack on to existing interurban rolling stock, turning the little EV's into a trans-Europe express.

The UC? represents a distinct shift in direction for a company whose reputation rests on a series of garish concepts and custom hot-rods forged from current upmarket European models.

Showpieces like a gullwinged Golf, a plastic-bodied 911 sportswagon and a chop-top speedster-profiled Cayenne have long provided the Saudi set and other super-rich with thoughtful alternatives to philanthropy.

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