Open Source Car — 20 Year Lease, Free Fuel For Life 319
ruphus13 writes "The race for a hyper-fuel-efficient car is on in a big way. Now, Riversimple has tried to leverage the knowledge of the masses to bring its vision to reality soon with a car that gives the equivalent of 300 miles to the gallon. 'The idea to build an open source car isn't a new one, but you've got to give vehicle design company Riversimple credit for originality. The company plans to unveil its first car in London later this month, a small two-seater that weighs roughly 700 pounds. If you agree to lease one for 20 years (yes, 20), Riversimple will throw in the cost of fuel for the lifetime of the lease...The team decided to release the car's designs under an open source license in order to speed up the time it takes to develop the vehicle while also driving down the cost of its components.'"
Eh, maybe. (Score:3, Informative)
The Urban Car weighs just 772 pounds (350 kilograms), can reach speeds of 50 miles (81 kilometers) per hour, and has a range of more than 200 miles (322 kilometers).
While my Jeep may be heavier, it too on a full tank of gas has a range of 200 miles, and can reach speeds of 50 MPH. And it won't struggle on a hill and I can take my groceries home. I'll be more interested in a car like this that would more practical for the family life. But it is interesting that the engineers will soon post the entire design on the wiki, and anyone can lease the it for free, modify it, and manufacture their own vehicle. 40 Fires Foundation [40fires.org] is a forum to develop energy-efficient cars using an open source approach.
Re:700 pounds -- goodbye safety standards! (Score:3, Informative)
"there are many countries where automobiles are not a religion" Sorry, I couldn't hear your reply over your snootyness. Cars are a necessity in the US. We have more room and things are much father spread out. Try getting around a typical western US city without a car.
Website full of drive-by downloads (Score:3, Informative)
Re:700 pounds -- goodbye safety standards! (Score:4, Informative)
The Smart ForTwo weighs over 2.5 times as much (1880 lbs.) in large part to the hardware required to pass those crash tests.
A 700 lb. car is going to get squashed like a bug in a crash with a vast majority of the vehicles on the road.
Lifetime supply of fuel? (Score:3, Informative)
This generally doesn't equate to "as much fuel as you can use." If you read the fine print on these type of statements they often mean "1 per ." When I was a kid I won a "years supply of mac n cheese." This turned out to be a coupon book with 12 coupons in it which could be used one per month. I believe Chik-fil-a did the same thing with their 'years supply' of sandwiches. They just provided 52 coupons for one sandwich per week.
So maybe you'll be allowed one fill-up per month.
Consumer Friendly?! Why "Open Source" Tag? (Score:5, Informative)
If you do compare it to other initiatives like OSCar [theoscarproject.org], you would find this option from Riversimple probably at a better stage of adoption. But until they unveil their prototypes (16-Jun-2009 is not far) and manufacturing goals (however they intend to go about it,) consumers will be skeptical about adoption. They first have to hit a note on consumers _wanting_ it or _needing_ it before proposing an attractive business model. Most of the prior comments reflect that we are not yet ready. Design momentum on OSCar seems to have stalled in the year 2006.
In contrast another vehicle release earlier this year happened in India with a lot of buzz about a $2,500 car, the Nano [tatamotors.com] from India. This car _can_ do more than 56 mpg on Gasoline. It isn't green, but you can grab one, drive one and feel much safer than the electric counterparts that roam about the cities. This car went through at least 2 yrs of testing because the average consumer was scared about safety. The adoption was further slowed down by slow manufacturing response from Tata Motors.
India has allowed an Electric car (REVA) to be used within City limits (for road safety and range concerns) manufactured by Reva [revaindia.com]. The vehicle (a modest 4 wheeler) which comes in multiple flavors has low adoption rates in cities which allow it. This car through evolution has been heavier than India's top selling gasoline small-car the Maruti Suzuki 800cc 4 seater, and offers lesser range within a city. It has a very short range of 80-100km and requires battery packs to be replaced every two years (or depending on usage.) From June, 2001 the adoption has been very slow. During July, 2008 at least 260 Reva's (multiple models) were sold which is a record high. The Reva is priced at a one time price tag of close to $6,500 with an installed set of batteries. These have to be replaced at about $1000 every year. There's some comprehensive information and links on the Wikipedia Article (Reva) [wikipedia.org]. The cost has been a factor in slowing down adoption added to the fact that electric charges are required almost on a nightly basis. India has welcomed the car with reduced parking charges and several cuts. The G-Whiz model sold outside India is far too pricey ($12000 in Chile) and does not enjoy these environment friendly regulatory benefits.
For crowded cities in India where pollution is a heavy problem, Electrical cars with limited range for office commuters who'd prefer some shade (where public transport is a little inconvenient with timings) has received early adoption. i would presume that countries facing rapid development and growth rates will have to take this more seriously. Scaling public transport infrastructure has always been a challenge in many developing countries owing to a myriad of reasons. The basis for creating indices to track air pollution is outlined quite well in this paper (PDF) from
Re:700 pounds -- goodbye safety standards! (Score:2, Informative)
It builds on the green philosophy...
If enough people buy them and get squished by the rest of the people who are smart enough to understand density/weight/safty retios, then it will reduce the population by that amount that bought the little "smart" cars... Thus reducing green house gas emissions by reducing the volume of homosapien flatulence.
Re:700 pounds -- goodbye safety standards! (Score:4, Informative)
Cars are a necessity in the US. We have more room and things are much father spread out. Try getting around a typical western US city without a car.
That's not because you have more room. That's because public transportation sucks and has a social stigma.
You don't need a car in London, for example.
Re:700 pounds -- goodbye safety standards! (Score:2, Informative)
The geography of the USA isn't exactly the motivating factor, it's the way that development has been applied to geography. A substantial fraction of the population manages to live in highly built up areas that are nonetheless miles from any commercial structure with no public transit, because:
(a) it's cheaper to buy one big blob of land, subdivide into lots, and build lots of the same house on those lots,
(b) most American towns and cities use zoning to separate out real-estate based on usage,
(c) the population has grown substantially through an era when car manufacturing was one of the largest American industries, which employed hundreds of thousands of people, which makes car ownership associated with patriotism,
(d) individual freedom and independence has a strong hold on the American mentality and the automobile is both a very effective means to that end (the freedom to go where you want when you want) and a symbol of that freedom (thanks partly to advertising).
All of this is a long way of saying: car makers and land developers both make plenty of money, and they both benefit from the separation of residential, commercial, and industrial spaces so that people need to commute to shop or work, and they've spent some of that money getting communities laid out that way.
Re:Organ Donors (Score:1, Informative)
The Smart ForTwo weighs over 2.5 times as much (1880 lbs.) in large part to the hardware required to pass those crash tests.
How well do, for example, motorcycles pass crash tests?
Motorcycles don't. You get into a wreck with another vehicle, you die. We refer to motorcycle riders as "organ donors" in the US.
That's not true at all. Motorcycles have several advantages to little unsafe cars like this one.
On motorcycles, you're wearing (or should be wearing) lots of safety gear. Protective boots, pants, jacket, gloves, and most importantly, a full face helmet, so if you skid along the road you'll likely live.
In motorcycle crashes the rider tends to be thrown from the crash. If you're trapped in a little car you just get crushed.
Cars with no proper safety design are actually less safe than motorcycles. I'm not just making this up, there was recently a test of these "low speed electric vehicles" by the government insurance company in BC, Canada that came to this conclusion.
Re:700 pounds -- goodbye safety standards! (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Drove over 800 miles in last three days (Score:4, Informative)
Cars are only a necessity in the US for most people because most of the US lacks decent public transport system and because cities are planned based on a population that travels everywhere by car. Start building decent transport systems and make planners consider pedestrians and bikes and the number of people who need cars to get around will plummet quickly. With better public transportation, other aspects (such as denser downtown shopping areas instead of megastores spread out over large areas as in some of the more sprawling areas in the US will follow.
Mod parent up for being a true geek! (Score:5, Informative)
"How well does a bike work in the rain?"
I love it, only on slashdot. Mod parent up for being a true geek! Only a true geek who doesn't do daylight or weather query whether bikes work in the rain.
For your information, pretty well. Stopping distance is slightly longer and like motorbikes and cars, performance is somewhat reduced.
People who use bicycles in wet weather handle the rain by using "coats". They put their luggage in waterproof containers which keeps the rain (a type of "weather") off the contents.
I cycle to work and back, 8 miles each way, any weather apart from ice and heavy snow. You put on a coat, and waterproof trousers. Gortex is a wonderful invention. Waterproof panniers keep my laptop nice and dry. No problem.
Some people wear specialist cycling clothing, I just use my walking gear.
I'm guessing you're not much of an outdoors kind of person.