In the movie Idiocracy, there are numerous scenes showing the state of road transportation in the year 2050, and none of it is encouraging. Forget fancy robot or flying cars, it looks like the best the future will be able to muster are glorified golf carts. Since many people revere the cult film as akin to a documentary, this could be cause for depression, so we thought we’d add to the jolity.

The new Aixam Coupe S is a racy looking urban vehicle which has just been released in Europe as a city runabout, targeted specifically at the youth driver. The vehicle comes with a conventional 400cc diesel engine, but because of its specifications it qualifies as a quadracycle, which is one step below a motorbike. This means it can be driven by 16 year olds on a moped license.

There are two miraculous things about the car…er…quadracycle. First, it comes with all the trimmings you’d expect from a grown up motorcar, including interior fittings, four wheels, even a cigar lighter socket, and two, it features a maximum speed of 40 km/hour, which is around 28 mph. Parents will love it.

Never mind that it does 95 mpg and keeps out the rain, we’re amazed that a car company, even a French one, would release a product like this for a price of around £9000. However, thinking about it a bit more, it seems that if we’re really heading for climate and peak oil crises, then this is exactly the kind of transition product we can expect to see in greater volume as the decade progresses.

How do you feel about that, car lovers?