Ultra-light Cars...

[catnhatnh]

are something we need. Did you know that in general aviation there are two classes below a Piper Cub and that ultra light aircraft require no license?

VW has introduced a vehicle to be sold in China this year and it shatters all preconceptions of what a "car" should be-It seats one, sells for the equivalent of $600, and delivers a rating of 258 miles per gallon with a single cylinder diesel. It can hit 65....

You can't do that with airbags and sensors on board. Should I mention the VW offering is built of carbon fiber and crash tests as well as an F-1 car in a collision?

What I suggest is the same as what the FAA allows or even Motor Vehicle if you waive the cocoon of supposed safety allowed by driving a passenger car as opposed to a motorcycle or even a light truck. If you reduce the regulation there are light vehicle worlds unexplored.

There are loads of people on this board that love riding motorcycles and all leave sensors and guarantees behind-the best you can do is dress well and pick a good helmet.You watch for yourself and work toward surviving...

But picture an America where new cars could be had for $600. Not junk, not shoddy, but a personal transport within the reach of even homeless people or three weeks of minimum wage. If you can waive safety requirements for 2 or 3 wheels, or 4 wheels if you drive an exempted "classic" or "antique" car than there is no reason a knowledgeable waiver of safety equipment would be unreasonable.

Hummers are dying-It is time for transportation to fit the times.

[flvegan]

1. You mean like the Caterham R500?

0-60 in around 3 seconds. Perfect handling. Only 30 mpg though, hooning it like you had a death wish...

[Electric Monk]

7. That looks like a replica Lotus Seven?

Here's another to compare.



Wonderfully fun little cars :)

[TheMightyFavog]

59. I'll take one, British Racing Green with a yellow strip up the bonnet

With Wisconsin vanity plate KAR 120C.

[hayu_lol]

2. I saw a pic of that VW some time back...not bad looking...

if they brought it here and got the safety waivers, they would probably price it at $15,000.

Greed has a way of getting in the way.

I remember the early Beetles, bought one new in '58. Massive 36 HP engine and a big rear window. $1500 in NYC, $1600 in SF, and I paid $1800 in Honolulu for ours.

[madokie]

41. To give you an idea how times had changed

In '72 I bought a new vw beetle with a 65 hp engine for $2267. That being in Oklahoma. :-)

[formercia]

62. The '70 model I bought and later drove to OK was $1800ish.

Back then, you could get gas in OKC for 18 cents a US gallon. I put 150K miles in 6 years driving around the Southwest. My new Bride totaled it. I got it back from the tow yard for $50 and sold it to a Dune Buggy shop for $700. Now, that was cheap driving.

Oh, I forgot. The Insurance company gave us a check for $1500.

[zeemike]

3. Now imagine this.

That that super light car could go to a tube station and be whisked hundreds of miles at high speeds in a pneumatic tube.
It would make the train and the jet airliner a thing of the past for land travel.
Sound like too much imigination?....not so, It was purposed in 1969.

[itsrobert]

13. And traveling through time

was first proposed in 700 BC.

[zeemike]

16. By National Geographic?

That is who purposed it in 1969...the technology existed then to do it and it is even easier now.

[Luminous Animal]

15. Can you imagine the wait in line to get in that tube?

[zeemike]

17. They had it all laid out in low medium and high speed lines.

It is not that hard to do.

[Luminous Animal]

29. The more we accomodate single occupancy vehicles...

the greater the congestion. This has been proven time and time again.

[zeemike]

43. It is not so much single occupation vehicles as

individual means of propulsion.

[chillspike]

39. I love that idea...

It would also be a great and clean way to ship freight across the country.

[zeemike]

44. And far cheaper too.

Can you imagine a world without 18 wheelers?...I can.

[baldguy]

4. Why promote individual motor vehicles? Why not promote public mass transit?

Automobiles are already massively subsidized at the expense of nearly every other mode of transportation. Example: I could take a train into work downtown every morning for $66/month *or* I can drive downtown every morning & park for $40/month.

What's wrong with this picture?

[Warpy]

8. That won't work in about 90% of the country

Out here in flyover country, the distances are quite large, especially in the more rural cities and towns. The nearest grocery can be 30+ miles away and the nearest town with a department store 50+ miles away. It's not terribly unusual.

While intercity rail is the way to go in more densely populated urban corridors is the way to go, it's just not going to work for most rural people. Lightly populated areas will always need personal transportation.

[Luminous Animal]

9. The vast majority of people do not live in flyover country...

http://www.time.com/time/covers/20061030/where_we_live/

While I agree that rural residents will need personal transportation, our priority should be solutions for efficient & convenient mass transportation for the rest of us.

[Warpy]

20. No, but you can't write flyover country off if you want to eat

and flyover country will need that personal transportation.

[Luminous Animal]

30. Yep. I said that. Your point?

[depakid]

14. Works pretty well for rural New South Wales

http://www.countrylink.info

Helps to support a lot of those little town's festivals and such.

Have a look at network:

http://www.countrylink.info/timetables/network_map

[Warpy]

21. When they do Queensland, let me know.

[depakid]

22. Currently, you can get to BrisVegas and the Gold Coast- not sure why anyone would want to go there!

QR's working on expansions to their lines:

http://www.qrnetwork.com.au/media-and-community-centre/news-archive/10-03-23/QR_calls_for_workers_for_Northern_Missing_Link.aspx

Many of those rural towns much smaller than the ones in NSW, and dwarf most small towns in the Western USA.

[Warpy]

23. Some towns here in flyover country are just that small

and sport a gas station/convenience store and a feed store and not much else, maybe a handful of houses.

[depakid]

24. Where rail service would be more appreciated is along the Oregon, Washington & No. California coast

A lot of these little towns are heavily dependent on tourist dollars, and will be experiencing hard times this decade as gas prices rise.

And there are existing lines and right of ways in place that could be used in the initial phases of a project.

[Warpy]

34. Here in NM, much of the north-south commuter train

uses the median on I-25. Uncle Sam already blasted through the mountains, so all we had to do was lay the track.

Right now, the train connects the exurbs south of Albuquerque to Santa Fe to the north. Denver wants the whole thing extended up their way and El Paso wants it to come south.

[madokie]

42. Thats the way it is here too

[Warpy]

57. I think it's easy to lose sight of that when you live in a densely

populated area on one of the seaboards. I know I did for a while, then I moved to flyover country.

I think everybody needs to drive across the country at least once, just to see how big and desolate so much of it really is.

The big thinkers might have a completely different opinion on transportation needs.

[Strelnikov_]

28. Mass transit does not save energy compared to the typical automobile

(20.5 mpg) in terms of energy consumed per passenger mile.

Mass transit, to date, has been deployed to alleviate traffic congestion and pollution (smog). With the population density we have attained through decades of development, mass transit is not energy efficient.

Following is the publication that caused me to dig into energy efficiency of mass transit.

Our urban sprawl has no precedent in history, so the feasibility of a mass transit system has yet to be proven – a true mass transit system for the U.S. today may, in fact, be impossible. In addition, the energy savings of mass transit, in the context of implementing such a system in today’s configuration configuration of cities and urban sprawl, may be highly overrated. Figure 6 shows that existing mass transit systems do not provide significant fuel savings.11 It depicts the Btus of energy per passenger mile (assuming average passenger densities) for each type of transportation.

11. Transportation Energy Data Book, 25th Edition, 2006, tables 2-11 and 2-12, Center for Transportation Analysis, Oak Ridge National Laboratory.

http://www.communitysolution.org/pdfs/NS12.pdf

Following is the raw data:

http://cta.ornl.gov/data/index.shtml

Following is the concept of what I think is the personal transportation future to serve as the collector from low density development to high load factor electric powered mass transit corridors.

[hunter]

48. Electric, not oil.

That's a good thing.

It's very unlikely "today’s configuration of cities and urban sprawl" will survive without inexpensive petroleum. As the cost of extracting oil rises the population density of suburban areas will increase to urban levels or these suburbs will be abandoned.

[Skink]

5. Meet george Jetson.

data:image/jpg;base64,/9j/4AAQSkZJRgABAQAAAQABAAD/2wBDAAkGBwgHBgkIBwgKCgkLDRYPDQwMDRsUFRAWIB0iIiAdHx8kKDQsJCYxJx8fLT0tMTU3Ojo6Iys

[Warpy]

6. Eventually we'll need some commonsense revision of regulations

that allow ultra light cars in cities and suburbs, but they're highly impractical at highway speeds. Consider being passed by a big rig on a bridge, white knuckle city as the ultralight gets blown all over the road.

Restricting the interstates to trucking and heavy intercity vehicles would make a bit more sense.

Most people stay within 30 miles of home unless they're going on vacation. For those people, ultralights make the most sense, renting cars once a year for that vacation the obvious solution for that.

[FreakinDJ]

11. And some common sense Tort Reform

They can easily build them to survive 100 mph impact but they can't make them Idiot Proof

[Luminous Animal]

12. There is plenty of carnage going on right now at 65 miles per hour

and I don't see any car manufacturers going out of business due to lawsuits.

[FreakinDJ]

60. No - because they have a fleet of lawyers

the problem being a NEW Car company often time doesn't

[kentauros]

10. That would be the VW 1L

Translation: 1-litre/100km or about 234-mpg :D
And it seats two, in tandem.

They also had a version of the Polo that got 3-litres/100km or 78-mpg, but I'd read that they stopped production of it a couple of years back. Why they didn't market it here, I don't know. Probably didn't meet some regulation over here or they didn't do their marketing studies right.

VW 1L wiki link
VW Polo Mark V wiki link


The 1L:

[Strelnikov_]

25. Going to be a hell of a lot more than $600 n/t

[kentauros]

45. Yes, but it's the only VW of which I've found any evidence

that also gets 258-mpg ;)

If VW really has such a car that costs the equivalent of $600 USD and gets 258-mpg and can go a speed of 65-mph, then I'd like to see some evidence of it :)

[Fumesucker]

18. How about 400 mpg?

http://www.craigvetter.com/pages/470MPG/high%20mileage%20fairing.html

[kentauros]

19. That looks cool

but if they hired Syd Mead to do the industrial design, it'd look even cooler! :D

[Strelnikov_]

26. Jevons paradox

And the VW you are referencing is going to cost one hell of a lot more than $600. Carbon fiber . . magnesium frame . . diesel engine . . $600??

[LeftyMom]

27. Fuck no.

All that heavy safety stuff? Saves lives. Even though there are more of us on the road and more of us period, car accident fatalities in the US are at historic lows. All that safety equipment matters, because last I checked most of the people on the road are morons, and most of us would like to survive encounters with other people's stupidity.

For that matter, weight matters and heavier cars are safer up until a little over one ton, at which point further weight gain seems to be offset by decreased maneuver and increased risk of rollover.

I got in a car accident last summer going 70 mph (which is positively sedate for a California freeway in a rural area, fwiw) in a '97 Saturn wagon and walked away without so much as a bruise. If I'd done that in a $600 Chinese rollerskate I'd be dead. I'd love to have a more efficient car, but I'm not giving up one mpg at the expense of my kid's safety.

[Luminous Animal]

31. At 70 MPH you were exceeding the speed limit. AND YOU WERE PUTTING YOUR KIDS LIFE IN DANGER.

Did you tell your kids that you were going over the speed limit? Did you tell them that you were breaking the law? Did you tell them that were an illegal?

[LeftyMom]

35. 70 mph is the limit on that road.

Further, my kid was hundreds of miles away. I don't magically have a different car when he's not riding along.

[Strelnikov_]

32. "I'm not giving up one mpg at the expense of my kid's safety"

And there we have it.

[LeftyMom]

36. What?

There are plenty of technologies available to make more efficient transportation available without compromising safety.

[Strelnikov_]

58. ..

Enjoy.

[Tesha]

47. I've long since decided that there's no hope for us.

We'll all keep doing exactly what we've been doing until the
moment when we absolutely positively can't do it any more.
Then society will utterly collapse.

Easing into a different but more-stable regime by gradual changes
simply can't happen; only a cataclysm will force us to change (or
die off).

Tesha

[Strelnikov_]

49. Collapse? We're too big to fail! n/t

[Strelnikov_]

50. ..

[Strelnikov_]

51. ..

[Strelnikov_]

52. ..

[Jack_DeLeon]

56. Me to, but I dont care about other people's safety, they should have the choice.

[Incitatus]

33. If you got in that accident in a motorcycle, you would dead too.

Should they be illegal?

[LeftyMom]

37. In the US hardly anybody uses motorcycles for daily transportation.

Rather, for most people they're largely a hobby, and are used on days and roads where they pose the least risk- minimal traffic, open space, dry roads, good visibility. Even then, a lot of people die and a lot of people get hurt.

Making something about as safe as a motorcycle (ie not at all) but marketing it for use like a car (as primary transportation, suitable for use in bad weather, heavy traffic, etc) is pretty much a recipe for massive carnage. Poor countries already do this, and the US did too before we figured out crash physics and safety standards and improved health care got us used to the idea that all of our kids deserved to grow up and accidental deaths were preventable.

I'm going to go write an epic love poem to my Subaru and it's 10,000 airbags now. I'm sure the airbag system alone cost more than $600, and I'm damned glad it did.

[panzerfaust]

38. I did for 3 years - my only wheels

sometimes is was pretty scary - and could sure be difficult in winter (Seattle)

Now I live in Texas and drive a bubbatruck but I still wear a helmet when I drive.

As for why a bubbatruck and not a Prius (which I would prefer): There is simply no substitute for mass once two vehicles have come together. Might want to look at this British crash test of SUV vs. Honda Civic Coupe ( http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m_86RuYXoJA&feature=related ).

Both were quite old vehicles (1992 I think), and with more modern restraint systems at least one, and likely both, of the people in the SUV would have survived - however, even now, there is no restraint technology which would have saved any of the people in the Civic.

A few years ago, coming home from the hospital on a holiday after doing an emergency case, I was rearended by a hopped up kid in a small car. No one was hurt (And I did not even do the All'Merican thing of suing for 'whiplash'). The front of his car went under my rear bumper, its whole front end was crushed, a wheel broke off and was totaled. My bubbatruck got a bent bumper. If I had been driving the Honda Accord I used to have - it would have been much worse for me.

Why do I wear a bike helmet in my bubbatruck?

Watch this video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-Jb3tCkrlII and follow the crash-test-dummies head.

Working in a Level-I trauma center, it is a rare week when I do not see several severe head injuries from car crashes. At my age, my brains are all I have left.

[Fumesucker]

40. That's peculiar..

When I pointed out here on DU some time back that helmets would save far more lives if they were to be required to be worn in cars rather than on motorcycles I was told that head injuries in car crashes were extremely rare.

[panzerfaust]

46. You are right on both counts

A very coherent discussion of this topic can be found in this Australian "Accident Research Centre" report:
www.monash.edu.au/muarc/reports/atsb160.pdf

You can also reduce the risk of head injury by losing weight "Traumatic brain injury after frontal crashes: relationship with body mass index" ( abstract at http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19276745 ) which makes sense as Force = Mass times Acceleration.

It is easier for me to wear a helmet than to lose weight.

[salguine]

53. Oil companies would never allow something that gets 258 mpg.

[KittyWampus]

54. this ended up being an interesting thread.

[Jack_DeLeon]

55. I have no problem with it, if people want to risk their lives to save gas its their choice...

I like my car yeah it only gets 30mpg on the highway but I feel its a good compromise considering safety.

If people choose to have less safety for and would prefer to save on fuel I say we should let them.

If some of those people die in car crashes so be it, they knew the risks and also its not as if the human race is an endangered species. I dont understand why we as a society try so damn hard to save people from themselves. I understand why I would want to protect my family but I feel no such need to protect random strangers from themselves. If anything this world has way to many people.

[FreakinDJ]

61. Those cars have full tubular cage - can survive 200 mph impact

actually Tubular frame is lighter / safer, but much more "labor intensive" to make

[Kablooie]

63. They'd better not get TOO light or this might happen ...

Oh the humanity!

[B Calm]

64. Damn! For the price of one SUV, you could buy a whole fleet of these little cars!