The ugliest car in the world... maybe but it produces it's own energy...

Meet the new Eclectic from Venturi Motors... a new concept car that requires no fossil fuels to operate.

From the Venturi Website...

...drive to the mall on weekends?

... and they can play a two player game without wires ... and good thing its wireless, because it looks a bit small, so one may have to be in a bike trailer towed behind.

Of course, if you retrofit outer suburbia, there is no long drive to the mall, just a short drive to the dedicated transport site, where it could plug in.

:spray:

I'm not worried about my driving, I'm worried about the dumbass in the Hummer who's on a cell phone and runs the light when I'm driving through the intersection in that.

..that if everyone drove this kind of car, then collisions would be less of an issue.

(If I get hit by a Hummer in my Honda, they need a spatula to clean up the mess. The problem is the existence of Hummers on our roads.)

It would take years, and the carnage that would occur in that time would have people buying old gas guzzlers again just to survive accidents.

Years? How long do you think gas will be affordable to most people?

If it's really cheap, most people will want one. Only the rich will be sticking with regular cars.

Anything that frees up a lot of the $$ people spend on their daily lives is going to catch on with the vast majority.

is based exactly on that one fear.. Hence the popular all terrain vehicle became the norm you'd stick your children in because you "feel" safer.

I wonder how untrue that is and how man crazy maniac drivers drive suvs, negating any type of safety for anyone.

my god does that make any sense? lol

Looks a few degrees safer than a motorcycle.

Was hit three time while on my bike... I'm not dead (yet).

Buy him one of these.

It looks like the robot from that Guttenberg movie

:)

Nice touch!!

The eclectic just looks like a glorified golf cart.

It looks like something Robocop would drive

TlalocW

Horrid... I cringed at first sight.

:sarcasm:

you know...the Flintstone method?

Actually, I like to see new ideas in action. I would be afraid of the new Cadillac Blitzkrieg hitting me in that, but if everyone drove one, then it'd be OK.

But it doesn't look very safe.

They cut themselves off at the knees when they bring us shit like this. Look at this one.



At $75,000 it's a bit over almost everybody's limit, but we can comprimise, take some style cues, and come up with an affordable one that looks good, can't we?:shrug:

Even electricity has to come from SOMEWHERE. If it's a coal plant, it's a polluting somewhere! The cool thing about this one is that it doesn't need that!

me thinks that the 'self-generating' aspect will extend it's range, but not power it completely for very long.

sP

I checked the website under "technical specs" and you can go X miles on X hours of solar, X miles on X hours of wind, etc. So if you don't have sun and you don't have wind, you're SOL unless you can plug the thing in. Makes sense to me.

It looks like it would not be a bad commuter car, for about 15-20 miles a day, and IIRC, something like 80 to 90% of trips Americans take are less than that.

Funny, you'd be vying for a parking spot NOT in the garage. :rofl: This would be good here, all the sun we get in summer. I wonder if it's got air conditioning though. Probably not. :scared:


Edit to add: Site says you can get 7 km/day out of the solar. Hm, guess you would need the plug for most days, that's a pretty short trip. :(

15-20 miles a day would get me to OR from work...unless I parked on top of the parking structure...that might work on a sunny day...

sP

Don't forget that climbing the parking structure takes work
(energy) too, and a surprising amount at that.

The Teshas live at the top of a hill that's about 200 feet
or so above the surrounding terrain. You'd be amazed at
the amount of gas the cars burn in the last 3/4 mile or
so of the homeward trip, the part that climbs that hill.
On Mr. Tesha's commute home from work (~35 miles), the
fuel economy indicator lose an entire mile-per-gallon
climbing that hill.

Tesha

our parking structure has it's top at ground level...the rest is subterranian...

sP

The traditional 245 air conditioner is where you roll two windows down and drive 45.

This car doesn't seem to have any windows...or doors, for that matter, just big holes in the sides to crawl through.

Is this one of those "neighborhood electric vehicles"? You can get those now. Check out http://www.zenncars.com. Zenn means "zero emissions, no noise" and they make cars that are completely plug-in electric, go no more than 25MPH for 35 miles, can be recharged in a few hours and cost $12,000. If I chose my routes carefully to stay off the 45mph roads as much as possible, this car would do 90 percent of everything I need a car to do.

BUT, we're used to them and they add to the style of any auto. Whats inside them? Radiator fans maybe? How fast does a car have to go to turn a turbine generator inside the front grill? Electrics don't need radiators, or coolant, since the amplifier doesn't get nearly as hot as an IC engine, so a simple scoop design to pass through the amp would suffice. Why does this thing have theirs sticking out of the car like some Carmen Miranda fruit hat? It screams bad design.

Coal plants are much more effcicient burning than any ICE out there (76% vs. 34% for the most efficient cars engines). I'd also rather regulate the emissions of 200 coal plants than 300 million cars.

If you want air conditioning, or even ventilation, you'll
probably still see some sort of air induction at the front
of the car. The power electronics and the batteries need
some cooling air as well.

Tesha

If you are using more energy to transport the car than to transport the person, that's not so efficient.

Average 90% efficiency, top speed; 80% efficiency.
Regenerative ABS braking system.
Max power 185 KW.

More specs...

http://www.teslamotors.com/engineering/tech_specs.php

One more shot. It's just too gorgeous.

When you talk about efficiency, you have to figure that into the equation. What does it mean to say you are experiencing 90% efficiency by moving a 2500lb structure around to transport a 180lb. person?

De Clarke says it better than me:



Go on, read at least the next short section of the essay - the next section is barely longer than what I quoted already: http://www.ucolick.org/~de/AltTrans/efficiency.html

I don't really see the importance of this guy's argument. This man may be talking about big SUV/trucks which still have ICEs. The Tesla is all electric, and since the GM EV1s were all crushed and this new contraption from the OP isn't yet for sale, it's the cleanest car available, period.

Personal transportation isn't as cut and dry logical as this guy wants to make them out to be. If that were the case, then there would be only a few car designs every couple of decades. Cars have an emotional connection to the owner/driver that lunch boxes and even $3000 Hi-Def TVs can't give them. It can't be explained, but most people know it. When they say "I love my car" it means much more than just miles per gallon. Nobody loves a lunch box. Nobody parks their TV on the front drive.

Efficiency coefficient be damned. I'll take Candy Apple Red over a propeller beany hat any day.

See, this is the problem with most EV makers, or Zero emissions advocates, if I can also presume to include you in this category as well. Most people who want us to drive EVs, and those like the one up top actually hate cars. They hate personal transportation, and they think that anybody who are car lovers are either whacked in the head, or downright dangerous, self centered destroyers of the planet. This is automotive design/manufacturing/marketing, not environmental activism. Advocates and most makers of Evs have yet to tell the difference. They make these ridiculous contraptions, then they blame us "rubes" out there who won't fork over money for them, and blame us for not wanting to save the planet, instead of doing it right. Making an attractive car that people have a visceral reaction to, and saving the planet is just the bonus.

Make some nice looking, reliable electric cars. Some for every need, taste, and income level. Make them go for 200 miles on a charge like the Tesla, 125+MPH like the Tesla, and people will start buying them. The air will clean up, and we can all have less athsma in our lives. And...there's nothing wrong with getting laid along with it.;)

and that's exactly where the essay goes, if you follow it along.



A contraption might be a pretty candy-apple red color with "nice lines," whatever that means. I generally see people use that when it has curves, as if cars and women's bodies and sex are all intertwined, and even your statement about getting laid seems tied up in that. "I love my car" indeed. What does it say about a person when they are paying to haul a 2000 pound love box around every place they go? Isn't that kind of absurd - at least on some level - if you step back and look at it logically instead of emotionally? I love the slate floor we put into our kitchen, but I don't pay to cart 2000 pounds of extra tiles around with me to work and back each day because it looks nice or because I have the notion that people will screw me if they like the floor tiles I picked out.

In any event, all that sex and car stuff is amusing to me, given your presumptions about http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/D._A._Clarke">the guy I quoted. ;)


Thinking about this more, what I'd like to see is a bicycle pedal system worked into this vehicle's design, which wouldn't fully move the thing, but could assist whatever power source is currently being used.

You want them to do something, then you have to appeal to their baser instincts. It might be amusing to you, but if you want the public's fossil fuel uses to change or diminish, then you're going to have to offer them what THEY want, not what you think they should have.

BTW: That Propeller beanie hat has solar cells on the roof. No place for candy apple paint.

was that you read an essay about cars and math and assumed it was written by a man, while also equating having flashy possessions with being able to "get laid" - when the author made her mark on the world originally as a radical feminist. Foot in mouth disease.

What's NOT amusing is people stubbornly justifying their right to trash the environment and needlessly squander resources in order to indulge their own personal aesthetic preferences.

You are missing the point entirely.

Life must be sustainable, to be sure, but aesthetics, architecture, art, poetry, drama, decorating, theater, film, photography, music and *GASP* industrial design were all invented by humans to make life worth living. All are superfluous for basic survival, or human sustainability. They are, however, beautiful examples of humanity's drive for the spiritual or even just self expression, which are just as important to happiness as contentment.

I do not see how buying a car that uses no gas is "trashing the environment and needlessly squandering resources". Zero emissions means just that.

As far as your ill informed ad-hom on me, I was side-commenting on another poster's superior indignation about "getting laid" in this thread. Some times I write faster than people can follow, so my apologies. The comment had nothing to do with the polemic that you linked to, or the gender of the sanctimonious goody-goody who wrote it. ASSumption disease.

The implication is that if there's no tailpipe spewing forth nastiness on the vehicle itself, its power requirements don't have any impact on the environment. That's obviously not the case with electricity - there is a process to generate that power, and it does affect the environment. The more you use, the more it affects the environment (excluding those who generate it off the grid).

If you thought I was arguing against the value of aesthetics, you've missed my point. I have a B.A. in Arts and Aesthetics; I'm a working artist. Foot in Mouth, part 2.

My point stands. Stubbornly justifying a personal choice to pick a visually pleasing car that is less efficient is greed, and the people who will pay the cost of the environmental damage rarely ever seem to be the folks purchasing those products. It's like diamonds - gosh darnit, they are sparkly and pretty, but that doesn't morally justify the exploitive industry.

The arts can and do enhance our lives, but it's unethical to enhance our lives through superfluous and wasteful industrial design decisions at the expense of others, who have no choice in accepting the consequences.

It's one thing to have an impact on the environment because you can't afford to live differently (can't afford organic food, can't afford natural fibers, don't live in a climate where riding a bike is an option, etc.). It's another to willfully be destructive to please one's ego.

You obviously didn't browse through the site. The garage mounted solar panels the car comes with generates enough power to charge the car and a little extra gets moved to the grid. I.E., ZERO EMISSIONS.

If you are a working artist, and you see no value in the work that these auto designers did with this machine, then I would have to question how your work could enrich my life, because I can only conclude that your jaundiced view you deem excessive would prevent you from truly looking any more closely than a cursory glance, thus question why I would buy any of your work, if your work reflects that kind of shallow myopia. I debunked your first foot in mouth ad-hom (I'm gay, we always think about getting laid. It's in our nature), you get no take backs.

I agree with the diamond trade, but since there's fake jewelry out there, and gold is more of a commodity now, then there are alternatives. I make smart choices in my coffee. I stopped drinking Coke and Pepsi because of the murders of union organizers in Colombia. But, right now, there are no alternatives to fossil consuming cars as of right now. The major manufacturers killed their own electric products they offered in the 90s. I didn't.
Now there's only hybrid or bio-diesel, which is better than nothing, but it could be better.

I reject your premise that having a nice car is nothing more than ostentation. Everybody likes to have nice things. You are surrounded by your art that you create, which I'm sure is beautiful (I was just making an argument up there... if I actually saw your work, I'm sure I would appreciate it), but you have the talent to create those nice things around you. I don't know how to build my own car.

I'm not justifying greed, but I do not see trashing the only electric car currently on the market as being wasteful is very helpful in getting the population to change their ways. If I bought one of these (which I cannot afford by any means), there's no way that one car can clean up the Denver skyline. A freeway full of different styles and price ranges though.

loses it autonomy when it has to reach for that outlet into which it is plugged...and, hey, how's THAT power generated? Any fossil fuels in there? I guess it could be hydro-electric or solar...but not in a lot of the country.

Gotta come up with something better...

sP

It's kinda like Mr. Toad's Wild Ride at Disneyland...(I think the cars in Mr. Toad's have more mechanical intricacy though...)

It looks like a friendly little bug.

My only comment: are there enough places on it to put bumper stickers?

Or a toaster on wheels.

this is a vehicle that will never have nuts

Murkans will never buy it

But I know exactly where my vagina decal is going.

It doesn't look good. Like that should matter for transportation.

It couldn't survive a collision, like all the other small cars would survive when hit by a SUV, Hummer or 18-wheeler.


It won't get you laid. Which is just too sad an "issue" to comment upon.

Getting back to the only argument that at least sounds reasonable.

By the logic of the "unsafe" naysayers, no one should ever ride a motorcycle or bicycle. Hell you probably shoudln't even walk to work lest you get squashed by a careening Toyota.

These sophomoric ideas will kill any chance of improving our energy/pollution burden.

It's completely electric. It runs for 200 miles on a single charge, and it is attractive. It also has doors, so that you don't fall out of it to be hit by that Toyota. Cars have always been fashion statements and looks are important to attract customers. If EV manufacturers don't make attractive EVs, then there is no chance of improving the pollution burden.

get laid in that car - no privacy. :rofl:

that thing wouldn't

A lot of people clearly have *NO IDEA* how much
energy is in a gallon of gas. If they did, they'd
laugh at the puny amount of power available to
this "car".

Gasoline stores about 35 KW/hours per gallon.

At 45 degrees north latitude, the *MOST* you're
going to get out of a square metre of solar cells
flat on your roof (as shown in the picture) is
around 175 Watts (varying with the season).

Let's say the car has two square metres of solar
cells on its roof (that's 39" by 78" for you
non-SI folks); probably about right. This means
that for every hour you leave the car *IN FULL
NOONTIME SUN*, it makes the energy equivalent
of about 1/100 of a gallon of gas.

That will get you far. :sarcasm:

While practical wheeled vehicles on the Planet
Earth may well operate on solar power, they will
*NEVER* operate on the solely on the solar power
that they themselves generate; the physics of
pushing them through air combined with the
limited amount of infalling solar energy per
unit area will simply never permit it.

Tesha

The wind gets you 15km/day.

Both under optimum conditions. It's not a lot, but it's something. I, for one, don't drive more than one trip a day (I make a point of it, actually) and I would say I could probably keep under that range most days.

Let's say you get optimum wind *AND* sun, a rare combination.
That gives you 22 km a day.

That's 4818 miles/year *UNDER NON-REALISTIC OPTIMUM* conditions
and probably more like 2400 miles/year under realistic conditions.

How many miles do most Americans drive each year? (Not that I'm
saying they/we should, mind you.)

Tesha

hanging in the mirror and the naked lady mudflaps and then we're talkin.

:headbang:

Haven't these people heard of streamlining?

but note the sound system.

And after reading this locked thread:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=389&topic_id=10790&mesg_id=10790

This vehicle can help to get you laid. :evilgrin:

Greg

and earlier (sort of). Just the essentials: An open car with seats, steering wheel inside, and all four tires spinning free outside the body- even little fenders on each one.

No way could you take the highway with that.

Rp

Crosley? Crosley also made electric cars. Lots of pictures here. http://www.ggw.org/~cac/SpotLite/Crosley_of_the_Month.html
I used to go to Crosley races in Louisville. they were held indoors at Memorial Coliseum.



they made a variety of racing machines and powered many quarter midgets back in the 40's and 50's.

so that I can drive 150mph on the highway?

I'm sure that puts me in a minority, but I consider a car as simply a device that gets you from one place to another. I've never viewed them as fashion accessories or as extensions of my ego. If it's "ugly" but doesn't burn an ounce of fossil fuel it still sounds beautiful to me!

I was first exposed to the miles/hour of life argument about 25 years ago, via Ivan Illich. I begrudge every moment spent maintaining the things, unless it's a hobby. I also would be very pleased to buy such a thing, if it gets done what I need done. For now, I ride the bus.

It's just an electric "car" (more like a golf cart) with a dinky wind turbine and some solar cells on the roof. It will have to get most of its electricity from the plug. It almost seems like a defamation of electric cars to call this this thing an electric car! Here's a site dedicated to electric vehicles:
http://www.austinev.org/evalbum/

Lots of road-worthy electric vehicles there-- and most of them were bought and converted for much less than the $31,000 that this thing costs.

Most likely...most electricity in this country is generated using coal powered plants...

Step 2: improve efficiency of electricity generation and reduce dependence on coal-powered plants.

Do steps 1 and 2 at the same time for extra benefit.

Step 2: reduce dependency on things that need to be transported all over the world for us to consume them.

(not necessarily in that order)

Alternative fuel sources without changes in consumption patterns doesn't solve the problem.

Captain Crunch pillows, Quisp cups, Dominatrix's butt plugs...

Brick aerodynamics don't help anything.

and since it's limited to 30mph, aerodynamics aren't so important. It's damn expensive for its abilities, though. I think people would be better off with a bike or public transport, and occasionally taking a cab when it's vital.

I mean, the optional extra radio/CD/mp3 player has to be waterproof.

:rofl:

One or two flamey paint jobs and you're away!