Engineering News

Now that is a great design, I love it.

I do like designs that get my mind working, I can already see ways to enhance the design to turn it into a certified automoblie rather than a motorcycle certification. Motorcycles are horrably costly to insure for the short season we have here in the Great White North. In fact now I think about it anything not 'normal' is horably expensive to insure.

I'm with you on that Kev,

All it needs is a prop and a parawing. I'll bet Blink is turning a little green over that one.

The aircraft look was rather obvious, and that will make it rather hard to sell to the general pubic I think. Another very nice design can be found at: www.campagnamotors.com unfortunately like the California counterpart the cost per vehicle is too high to make them practical. Once again the need to insure them as motorcycles add an unreasonable cost. My view is that there exists a need for a vehicle catagory 'green' to use a very over used term. The T-Rex is obviously a sport version, still very fuel efficient never-the-less. For this high efficiency automotive industry to work, changes will have to be made to how insutance companies rate these vehicles, unfortunatly the bean counters will fight that to their graves.

The jury has been in for some years on the, "Why are they so expensive?" issue. The answer is two words. Hand built. Until a "real" car maker gets into green cars using mass production assembly techniques, i.e., skilled auto labor and robots, and mass market parts suppliers, especially for lightweight batteries and in-wheel motors, there won't ever be parity for these vehicles. And you'd better believe that the major auto makers know it, too.

Truth to tell, in Canada, U.S. and Mexico (North America) there are no domestic or foreign auto makers doing anything but lobbying to put off mileage standards on any consistent basis. Their boards of directors all own too much oil stock to want to change anything. You can look them up in the securities and exchange public information rosters.

That is indeed true, and considering how poorly the stock has been doing that a lynch mob has not attended the annual meeting and demanded answers.

The key is mass production amybe a company like Tata will pick up on one of these companies and invest.

I had an interesting conversation with an executive from one of the alternate vehicle companies yesterday. We were discussing vehicle manufacture and levels of automation, availability of factory space and such things. The major problem is finding people to work who don't feel entitled to making $30.00+ per hour assembling a vehicle. They would love to move to mass production, unfortunately with the high profile of the UAW, and what they have managed to squeeze out of the 'not so' big three, everyone thinks they should get the same. This attitude of entitlement is what is killing manufacturing in North America and we have the unions to hold up as the cause. Once there was a time they had a reason to exist, in the era of the sweatshop but that time has long passed.

How do you expect it to respond in snow?

Not so well unfortunately. You may be familiar with the snow/ice clinging to the inner fenders of automobiles in colder climates. This build-up would be a disaster for this design of vehicle. A winter tire would also be an issue, typically motorcycle tires are not designed for winter use for obvious reasons. All season radial are a bit of a misnomer, the are more 3 season radials, really not safe in snow and slush conditions. Then there is the issue of heating the interior of the vehicle during the winter months, one nice thing about internal combustion, they heat up relatively quickly and provide some level of comfort for the occupants.

This particular design is very California centric, or should I say warm climate centric. I just cannot see it working well in the northern half of the continent. The other company I mentioned seem to have a viable design for winter use if they can find a way to enclose it for winter use.

The car isn't built for the snow, neither are rear wheel sports cars, neither are motorcycles. However, this vehicle looks amazing and appears that it will do its job well. I hope the company will survive long enough to get enough investment for automated manufacture, and the company does well enough so those that created it will be rewarded for their super cool effort. The doors look like somebody yoinked them from a McLaren F-1.

I hope they do to. The vehicle does look very cool, and I would love to get one for the seasons without snow.