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.'"
700 pounds -- goodbye safety standards! (Score:5, Insightful)
The company plans to unveil its first car in London later this month, a small two-seater that weighs roughly 700 pounds.
A car that will never sell anywhere in the US due to total inability to pass crash safety test. I'm actually surprised that it can be sold anywhere in the first world, to be honest.
Re:700 pounds -- goodbye safety standards! (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:700 pounds -- goodbye safety standards! (Score:5, Insightful)
I don't see the point of very small cars like this. If I don't need to carry anything I will ride my bike. If I do then I use my big, inefficient van. A small car wouldn't be much use to me because it can't carry much.
Yes, it certainly is a total piece of crap because it doesn't suit your lifestyle.
Many countries are full of tiny cars, where they serve as the primary (and inexpensive) vehicle for many people, some of who either can't afford a full-size car or are moving up from scooters and motorcycles. It might sound strange to you, but there are many countries where automobiles are not a religion, and paying a fixed lump sum a month to own a car is an attractive option. Plus, if you've ever seen the tiny winding streets of many European cities, you'll realize that this car isn't all that impractical in the right setting.
Of course, forget about it in the US, except maybe in Oregon.
20 years?! (stupid gimmick) (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:700 pounds -- goodbye safety standards! (Score:4, Insightful)
Introducing bigger cars into the market is a zero sum game for car safety, and a net safety loss for pedestrians.
This car would be safe enough without all those SUV's.
Time will tell, but as soon as oil prices are high enough, those kind of car will become a necessity, while SUV's will have to stay parked.
so much wrong with this (Score:3, Insightful)
20 year lease? You mean I'm still going to be making payments on this thing in 2029? Gimme a break.
Hydrogen fuel cell? And we refuel it where?
I don't care how green it might be (if it ever comes to pass), but locked into payments and a design for 20 years is just silly.
Re:20 years?! (stupid gimmick) (Score:5, Insightful)
If you RTA you'll see that the bodywork is made from carbon composite. I don't think it's that unreallistic for a car to still be going after 20 years - how many cars are there around on the roads from 1989/1990? Still quite a few (esp. Japanese made), in some parts of the world the majority of cars are that old or older.
But this post is a great illustration of how many people view cars as throwaway, disposable products, good for only 10 years. Cars don't just impact the environment with CO2 emissions, the material and energy cost of production, maintenance and disposal have to be taken into account, and it's about time seeing a manufacturer taking responsibility in this regard, rather than cashing in on the easy profits of throwaway consumerism
Re:20 years?! (stupid gimmick) (Score:2, Insightful)
A 20 year lease sounds like a dumb gimmick.
But you could drive the car in a climate that gets snow and salted roads - the body is carbon fiber - no rust!
Not everything can be made of carbon fiber. The metal parts (engine, exhaust system, etc) will still rust. Plus, 20 years is a very long time to commit to a car. Lots of expensive components tend to wear out over such a long period. We're supposed to believe that the company (which has zero track record building, selling, and maintaining cars) is even going to be here after that amount of time?
Of course, based on the fine article, it rapidly becomes clear that this is a vaporware economic model for a vaporware car design. This isn't a plan for designing and building a car --it's a plan for getting media attention for the design firm. As such, it's been successful.
Re:700 pounds -- goodbye safety standards! (Score:5, Insightful)
I call shenanigans on this. Australia has a population density of 2.6/sq. km. The USA has a population density of 31/sq. km. That means that the US is nearly 1200% more densely populated than Australia. With the exception of rural folk like farmers and miners (who need them), "Soccer Moms", and other types that have their heads filled with The American Dream, almost no-one drives American-style big cars here. Quite a few of my friends get around without cars at all - bikes, public transport, motorbikes/scooters, etc. Many of them own unnecessarily big houses, just because they're cheap, and yet they're doing fine getting around. I'm sorry that your automotive industry have ignored your needs and pushed a bunch of expensive and unnecessary cars on you, but please don't try and pretend America's natural geography somehow requires a car, much less the SUVs that are dominant. It's everything BUT geography at play here.
And before you start criticising me for taking your comment out of context, keep in mind that GRANDPARENT was discussing both cars and car sizes.
Re:700 pounds -- goodbye safety standards! (Score:3, Insightful)
This vehicle would hardly be dangerous at all if we got rid of the rest of the 1 ton+ passenger vehicles.
Considering that the Toyota Prius weighs in at 2,765lb-3042lb, that would be every other car on the road. Meaning your suggestion would be to replace all cars with this one.
Re:700 pounds -- goodbye safety standards! (Score:2, Insightful)
It's not so much the geography but the build-up that has been strongly influenced by the availability of the car and cheap fuel. People live in the sprawling suburbs and have to drive dozens of miles to work. The need for huge parking spaces spreads out the cities. It's no surprise that the drive-in is an American invention.
Re:700 pounds -- goodbye safety standards! (Score:5, Insightful)
The paradox of this simply amazes me.
If it were a motorcyle there would be no trouble with selling it.
Re:700 pounds -- goodbye safety standards! (Score:3, Insightful)
You mean there would be no trouble selling it to people who want to drive motorcycles and didn't care about style or performance.
Many people don't consider motorcycles safe enough to own one let alone drive it. The difference here is that it is being presented as a car and people are taking the same objections as they would have for motorcycles.
Why I love this concept (Score:3, Insightful)
The business model of making carts that can be rented for 20 years is the exact opposite of the current car industry's business model: the car industry of today makes cars that are not exactly reliable and long lasting. They don't have any interest to, because they want you to buy a new car every 5 to 10 years. They also want to make a ton of money from spare part sales.
But if you design a car to be reliable and with cheap spare-parts, that is also fuel-efficient, why that's the best thing one can do for the Earth, car-wise.
I wish these dudes good luck.
Re:700 pounds -- goodbye safety standards! (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:20 years?! (stupid gimmick) (Score:3, Insightful)
Those throw away cars don't go to the dump to get buried with all the household waste.
They get sold to people willing to do some work to them and drive them for a while longer or they go to a salvage yard and get cannibalized for parts until everything of value if picked from them, then they get recycled. All the throw away mentality does is present poorer people with an opportunity to own a car or repair their cars at a decent rate.
Organ Donors (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
Re:Motorcycles? (Score:2, Insightful)
They don't. We motorcyclists just avoid the accidents in the first place. Without the comfort of a safety cage you tend to anticipate idiots, keep significant separation from traffic and always have an escape route. Conversely, if you do get into an accident there is little available to keep you safe. Helmets, riding pants, jackets, gloves and boots all help increase survivability of an incident, but I won't stand in the middle of an interstate with my gear on just to see how effective it is. The answer is (and always was) better driving, not safety requirements.
Re:700 pounds -- goodbye safety standards! (Score:0, Insightful)
The majority of people don't have long commutes. Unless you're only talking about the country with the stupidest (hey, my spell checker says that's a word) cities.
Re:Drove over 800 miles in last three days (Score:4, Insightful)
Cars should be banned within city limits. This simple rule will save more lives than the last 30 years of cancer research. Cars are like cockroaches, getting rid of them in cities would be a blessing.
That's just plain stupid. Take a look at the map of the city I live in [laalmanac.com]. It's 30 miles in diameter, and there's nothing but other cities outside those city limits. There simply is no means by which a mass transit system could replace the road system in my city, as there is absolutely no "center" that people go to--- everyone lives somewhere else and goes to a different place to work. You probably live in one of those "cities" with 300K people that can easily be served by two light rail lines and a dozen buses. When you have a greater metropolitan area that's home to 12 million plus people that spans a dozen city entities in two counties, mass transit becomes a much bigger problem than can be solved by an idiotic handwave of "just ban cars from city limits".
I won't even begin to address the issue of what you consider "cars" and what constitutes a legitimately necessary vehicle. No... I will. Do you expect supermarkets to get food deliveries by bus? Is the plumber going to bring tools and 10-foot lengths of copper pipe to your house on the subway? Are old people who can barely walk expected to somehow drag 30 pounds of groceries home a kilometer from the nearest transit station? No, I'm guessing you'd suggest some sort of "permit" system that'd allow certain "special" classes of people to have personal vehicles... and like any such system, those with money would be able to game it and drive as they please. So what you're really suggesting is that poor people should be banned from driving in the city.
Re:700 pounds -- goodbye safety standards! (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:20 years?! (stupid gimmick) (Score:3, Insightful)
If you RTA you'll see that the bodywork is made from carbon composite
I guarantee that the vast majority of that 700 pound weight is made up of steel and copper. The body is the least of your worries in a salt environment.
But this post is a great illustration of how many people view cars as throwaway, disposable products, good for only 10 years.
That's because in a salt environment they are. The measures needed to preserve a car in those areas generally involve keeping it in a garage for the winter.
Re:700 pounds -- goodbye safety standards! (Score:4, Insightful)
"Quad bike"? Come on! You people invented the language.
-Peter
Re:700 pounds -- goodbye safety standards! (Score:3, Insightful)
On another note, I've always felt that SUVs were more or less entirely bad, in the sense that they don't do anything well: they can't carry as much stuff as a van or pickup, they can't carry any more people than a large station wagon (there were seven seat wagons long before there were SUVs), they mostly suck off road, they use more fuel than any two of these other options, they generally drive quite poorly, and because the headlights and bumpers and center of mass are higher off the ground, SUVs do more damage to other drivers at night, blind oncoming drivers at night, and block visibility at intersections.
Re:700 pounds -- goodbye safety standards! (Score:3, Insightful)
A car can be something fun to 4-wheel/offroad with. With me...I like a car that looks good, has a good exhaust note, and is a performance car.
I can't imagine getting a keeping a car for 20years?!?! The body style would be way out of style way before the lease was up.
Hell, about the only body style I know of that looked that timeless was the Porsche versions of the 911 from the 70's through the 90's or so....
Other than that, not many cars look at good that long.
Re:20 years?! (stupid gimmick) (Score:3, Insightful)
You can actually build a workable vehicle from carbon fiber and ceramics nowdays without using any metal at all. The biggest problem is how to you repair such a vehicle when it's damaged? Is it even possible? What about recycling the materials? Both steel and aluminum are easily recyclable, thus reducing actual energy costs associated with the manufacturing of the parts but cutting out the mining process.
What I'd rather see is the push to design a vehicle that's as close to 100 percent recyclable as possible. The other issue is to design such a vehicle to be as easily repaired as possible. This means it'll be butt ugly but I feel that something that can be easily repaired (modular components) can also be easily upgraded to improved performance levels just like a PC can be.
Re:Mod parent up for being a true geek! (Score:3, Insightful)
You start getting into a new discussion. If you've got to car around all these outfits and do all this changing just so you don't have a big brown stripe up your back (God help you if it's raining but hot -- you're sealing all that perspiration in), is it really worth the effort to save 2 dollars on gasoline?
Re:700 pounds -- goodbye safety standards! (Score:3, Insightful)
The company plans to unveil its first car in London later this month, a small two-seater that weighs roughly 700 pounds.
Gee, that's some rounding error right there.
770 pounds is closer to 800, and that means minimum 900 (perhaps 1000 pounds) with a person in it. Two people and you might have 1200 pounds.
The small size would worry me in North America, but I can see this being both sellable and safe in parts of Europe. After all, some of those old winding alleys are so small you can hardly fit a truck in them.
Re:700 pounds -- goodbye safety standards! (Score:5, Insightful)
Ob.: Move closer to work, or get a job somewhere more convenient ?
You only have one life to live. I'd rather not spend mine stuck in traffic, which is why I'm quite glad my office is only 2 miles away from my apartment and an 8 minute bike/bus/cab ride.
A long commute does not add value to your job. If you work a 40-hour work week, and your commute is an hour each way, it's kind of like taking a 20% pay cut. Well I'd rather take a job that pays 20% less and spend those two free hours on something else, like arguing on slashdot ;)
Re:700 pounds -- goodbye safety standards! (Score:3, Insightful)
Another thing to consider is a family life - if both folks work, then you have to balance disparate travel destinations in your choice of home, as well as the affordability factor. Or, you have to consider where you want to have your child schooled.
You might well say "hey, change job", but in these times there is not necessarily the variety choice of job there was available a few years ago, and almost certainly not the pay.
Saying all that - I still can't see this car working spectacularly well in London - there's the congestion charge to pay if you have to go to central London, plus parking fees which might make the train a more financially viable option