The worlds smallest vehicle is over One Billionth the size of a normal car and is made from atoms.  This is done via the manipulation of single molecules, known as Nano-technology.

Scientists at Rice University, Houston, Texas, USA, have constructed a vehicle using the parts inside a single molecule, creating the worlds smallest vehicle with this new nano-technology.

It qualifies as a true vehicle because it has a chassis, axles, wheels and a pivoting suspension that the four wheels roll on. The wheels themselves are called buckyballs and they are actually spheres of  pure carbon atoms, 60 atoms make up each wheel.

Here we see a computer generated graphic of the vehicle being 'test driven' across a surface of gold, with a blue arrow indicating its traveled direction. Each yellow ball shape that make up the 'road' is of course a single atom of gold.

At room temperature, electrical bonds hold the wheels against the gold, but heating the gold to about 185 degrees Celsius frees them enough to allow the wheels to freely roll.

Want a test drive ? Well you would have to be a wee bit smaller than you are now, the whole 'car' is no more than 4 nanometers across, ( a nanometer is measured as 1 millionth of a millimeter ) and 20,000 of these cars could park side by side across the width of a single human hair. An average human hair is relatively colossal in size at  80,000 nanometers across, give or take a few nanometeres.

The scientists had to use special microscope technology called "scanning tunnel microscopy" to see the car and to also prove that it rolls like a car, on its wheels that go round instead of just sliding about.

The Basics.

The image below shows the basic components of any nano vehicle using a graph of a proper car to illustrate these components in elementary terms.

Any vehicle even ones the size of atoms still need these basic components to be able to have the term 'vehicle' although sensors and actuators area a more modern infusion in cars today.

Latest Motorised Version.

The image below depicts the basic concept of the motorised version of the nano vehicle.

The computer generated graphic below depicts the latest version of the nano vehicle which now incorporates a motor. These two depicted nano-cars are again 'driven' on a surface of gold.

It was discovered that the four buckyball wheels that were used on the original version of the nano vehicle drained too much energy from the motor,  so they were replaced with spherical molecules of carbon but mixed with lighter hydrogen and boron (p-carborane)

As each wheel is only 1 nanometer in diameter, almost the size of an atom, it makes one wonder how they actually changed the wheels over? Also, by the laws of quantum mechanics, it's impossible to wear down part of an atom and since the wheels are 100% atomic they will never wear out or get damaged during use, neither will the 'road' surface.

The power units that the 'cars' use also qualify as the worlds smallest motors. The motor itself  is light activated, when light is shone onto the car the atoms that make up the motor react to the light and rotate like a paddlewheel and this propels the 'car' along. This motion has all been verified when viewed through the special electron microscope tunneling apparatus.  Through a normal laboratory microscope these cars are so small they cannot be seen.

The image above is an actual photo at atomic level of the nano vehicles taken with an electron tunneling microscope, the group of orange dots circled in white are the actual nano-cars. The large group of dots indicated by an arrow is actually the first nano-car accident where two vehicles crashed into each other. No damage resulted though.

On the horizon of this technology are now Nano-trucks that it is hoped will haul 'freight' in the shape of atoms from one place to another.

But what's the whole purpose of these nano-vehicles ?

“We want to construct things from the bottom up, one molecule at a time, in much the same way that biological cells use enzymes to assemble proteins and other supermolecules” said lead researcher James M. Tour, the Chao Professor of Chemistry, Mechanical engineering, Materials science and Computer science. “Everything that's produced through biology, from the tallest redwood to largest whale, is built one molecule at a time. Nano-cars and other synthetic transporters may prove to be a suitable alternative for bottom-up systems where biological methods aren't practical” 

“Building such machines is a step toward regularly manufacturing things of this size, which could be useful for many purposes.  We’d eventually like to move objects and do work in a controlled fashion on the molecular scale, and these vehicles are great test beds for that. They’re helping us learn the ground rules.” 

Leather trim, CD player, air con, cruise control, alloys ?? who knows what the future will hold !  either way, parking will never be a problem, but getting your shopping in may be  !