Alternative Energy Policies a Boon For Inflatable Electric Car 133
Brian Stretch writes with a story about the Mini Utility Vehicle prototype from XP Vehicles, an electric car that is partly inflatable. The recent struggles of the auto industry and a political climate that supports the development of alternative energy vehicles have given the car a better chance at actually hitting the market. Quoting:
"Building a car takes many years and tens to hundreds of millions of dollars traditionally. XP is able to cut a lot of the costs and timeframe because its car has 70 percent less parts than a regular car, and the company is using novel materials that require simpler factory devices, and production and manufacturing processes that lower the cost to deploy. ... The seat is inflatable, the dashboard is inflatable, and the internal structure and carrying racks are inflatable, or a mesh suspension. Instead of requiring six-axis robots, XP uses radio frequency welders that look like giant waffle irons. The factory equipment is much less expensive and the car simply has less parts that could fail. The motors are built into the rear wheels in most XP prototypes. The first cars to reach the market will have two rear hub motors and a motor controller, that's it."
less parts to fail.. (Score:4, Interesting)
never fear though - this is yet another imaginary product (they have nothing more than a computer rendering ffs), you need not fear that your car will deflate on you any time soon.
RTFA for such gem's as this "What we have discovered is that the insurance industry is not going to let electric cars run extension chords all over the place because you trip and fall" - genius, just pure genius.
Re:Just don't buy the upgrade (Score:5, Interesting)
Or be in when it goes "blue screen"...
Well, it does make prominent use of Microsoft Sharepoint, so color me skeptical on this point too.
[the] XP [car -edited] is basing its collaborative space around the Microsoft Office Sharepoint Server and also partnering with Autodesk
Too bad. Otherwise, I like the concept & business-model. I guess I'll have to wait for the open-source linux model to be developed. But as someone else commented, there's a so many Microsoft buzzwords thrown around, this could just be a hoax. The CEO's name is Redmond, and they use SharePoint prominently, and they make cars too? I'd like to see a prospectus.
Even if they are serious (Score:3, Interesting)
I doubt their ability to build the car, considering that they obviously don't understand the difference between power and energy. From the table in TFA:
-"Available power" given in kWh
-and three rows below a "hybrid power" for the Volt that is completely meaningless, considering that the Volt drives on electric motors and only uses the petrol engine for recharging.
Unless David Mantey, Editor, PD&D has cooked up this drivel on his own. In that case I apologize to the XP Vehicles Inc. crew and David Mantey may considered himself bashed ;-)
Re:Parent is making a reference - This is a Hoax? (Score:3, Interesting)
From their website [myxpcar.com]. If you don't feel like reading the answer, it's "we haven't got one to show you".
Q. Where can I see one of your cars?
A. It takes many years and tens of millions of dollars to create a domestic automobile for the retail market. Our competitors, are, in many cases, showing "mock-ups" of cars they hope to raise funding for. When we have spent the time and the money on a real car, we will show that car to our customers. We may allow some documentation of our mock-ups but we will not represent those efforts as engineered, market ready vehicles.
That sounds suspiciously like some of the Agile programming stuff...
Power is not measured in kWh... (Score:2, Interesting)