Striving to expand its reach into mobility?beyond its traditional building-cars-and-selling-them business?Ford started an ongoing discussion with its employees, named Cult of Disruption, looking for interesting new solutions to the problem of moving people around. In this, its second year, Ford issued a Last Mile Mobility Challenge. Workers were tasked to dream up alternatives to walking that could get people from a train, bus, or parked car to their destinations. Among the 633 proposals that came in, Ford chose these three: an autonomous electric wheelchair that can stow itself (a legitimately good idea), an electric tricycle that can also be used as a golf-bag carrier or a shopping companion (has potential), and what’s basically a Roomba with a face that you stand on and ride, or a Segway without the handle (okay"). Let’s start with the most practical idea, the eChair. If you’ve ever been in a wheelchair or accompanied someone who uses one, you know that the world is not very accommodating. This is particularly true if the wheelchair user is alone and needs to use a car. The process of transferring out of the chair into the driver’s seat, then stowing the chair and perhaps crutches or a walker, can become a major hassle. The eChair pretty much eliminates all that fumbling around. Once a person is seated inside the vehicle, he or she can use a smartphone app or controls built into the car’s infotainment unit to tell the chair to driv...