The Witkars of Amsterdam

It looks like a cross between a golf cart and a moon buggy. It is popularly known as "the flying bathtub" and "the top hat on wheels." Its real name is Witkar--Dutch for white car--and it may just prove to be the biggest advance in inner-city transportation since trolleys took over from velocipedes.

Invented by an Amsterdam engineer named Luud Schimmelpennink --apparently no kin to the Dutch cigar manufacturer of that name--Witkar is a two-seater, drive-it-yourself electric vehicle. It purrs peacefully at up to 20 m.p.h. and 2.4 miles between strategically located stations where it can be recharged in five minutes. There will be 15 in July, and eventually Amsterdam's burghers plan to have a fleet of 1,500 of the buggies in the central city.

The Witkar cooperative already has 1,500 enthusiastic members who have paid $15 each for membership and a key that both unlocks the car from a post at a recharging station and signals a computer to begin charging the account of the proper driver. Rather than paying a mileage rate, renters will be billed at a rate of 3 1/2-c- a minute, an arrangement designed to keep them moving as rapidly as possible. The Witkar is not only nonpolluting but also practical for downtown transportation--three of the Witkars occupy the space taken by a standard-sized European sedan--and it costs less than half as much as a taxi for the average trip. Next, Inventor Schimmelpennink, something of a Dutch Don Quixote, hopes to convert some abandoned windmills so his white chargers can be charged up by nonpolluting energy sources.

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