OK, maybe I should not be posting here, but I don't know where else I can find a group of people who might be able to provide some input here.

In the grand history of the world, the horse as a work animal has long been a staple of civilizations large and small. Few animals elicit such an emotional attachment as a horse.

Almost as a joke, I suggested recently that a good business to go into would be horse-drawn delivery services, and for fun, I had a look at what modern horse-drawn carts look like.

Here are some examples of what I found:





Interesting, in that the construction is still
Wood, exceedingly heavy and styled exactly as virtually every other wagon of it's kind.

I did some further research into the modern state of affairs for local delivery vehicles, looking at things like the Dodge Sprinter and the funn stuff they did over at Auto Week.

Shifting gears, as it were, I then took a look at some of the technology used in human powered surreys as well as Cargo Trikes:


Suffice it to say that I did a lot of digging, and after a while, I was reminded of a pretty "old fashioned" industry that was shaken up when modern materials and construction techniques came up with a new way of doing an old thing:



As far as I can tell, there's nothing out there that's really taking advantage of modern materials like high-strength aluminum alloys, regenerative braking/electric boost system (makes your horse last longer!), open-cell polymers and other similar technologies. A modern float wagon, built with an aluminum frame and constructed with road wheels similar to those used on racing bicycles would weigh in at 1/3 that of a similarly constructed wood wagon, without loss of carrying capacity or basic durability. What's more, adding an axle electric boost/brake would also allow the top of the wagon to be covered in solar cells to reduce the power drain of the wagon's on-board electrics.

For some reason, I see the increasing "localization" of the economy and a certain "greening" movement as a possibility for the novelty of a return, in high-tech form, of the horse-drawn delivery wagon. Maybe I'm nuts, maybe not, but imagine the press a company like Whole Foods could get if it did local deliveries by horse - and fed the horses right there at the store with a mix of leftover greens and such and regular horse feed.

Have i blown a neuron here?