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Amphibious Car Beats Urban Congestion
woodhouse writes "According to BBC News, a company in the UK have just tested a fully amphibious car on the Thames river. It can travel at up to 100 miles an hour on land, and its wheels fold up to allow it to speed across water at 30mph, propelled by a jet. The company responsible, Aquada, suggest it's a good way to avoid congestion."
I'm not sure it is. None of the pictures indicate that it actually ahs a roof...
On the road, I guess...
:)
I can hear the traffic report now "And the Thames
is all backed up with those damned amphibious vehicles"
it would still be pretty cool to have
an amphibious car anyway.
Boat ramps are the first thing that come to mind, but then there are launch fee's ect that would make me not want to use one.
.com CEO was going to get us all some wing in ground effect vehicles to travel from Alviso to Alameda.
Which leaves only a choice.
Enter/Leave water by shore.
This car doesn't look like it has 4wd. So it looks like i'd have to gun it really fast to get over the muddy shoreline. Doesn't solve the problem of getting out of the water either. Another problem is most waterways are fenced in these days.
Dukes of Hazzard Jump.
I guess you could try jumping the thing off a bridge, but it seems a little dangerous, again, how are you going to get the thing back onto dry land?
It looks more like a toy for someone that can afford it, instead of a pratical solution for cutting down or avoiding traffic. Reminds me of when my
In fact, sir, the Krauts were at it long before the Brits. The had an interesting 4x4 volkswagen type 166 aka Schwimmwagen. I always wondered how the SUV's would look like in the "Nazis won WW2" alternative history. Since the Allies won, most 4x4 vehicles are more or less jeep-like. In the "Vaterland"/"Man From The High Castle" worlds, 4x4 vehicles would probably resemble the military volkswagens. And thus would have amphibious capability as early as in 1940's.
Just what we need:
Jets chewing up fish beds
Pollution in whole new areas, right in the water table.
Yahoos leaving the road at strange places to enter water.
Soil erosion and commuter traffic on the river.
yipee
We have speed limits posted for all bodies of water here in the US.
Really?
What's the speed limit for your average Alaskan lake?
Is it high enough for all reasonable floatplanes to be able to take off?
If so, is there really anything that might want to go faster than that?
"Hovercraft"
Yes , their impracticality would be why they were used in passenger service cross-channel for 30 years and why so many military marine forces (including the US)
use them as landing craft.
"Concorde"
Twice the speed of sound and still not matched by anything built elsewhere. Nuff said.
"The Titanic"
A good ship with a lousy crew. Your point is?
"Nuclear waste reprocessing"
Yeah , why reprocess and reuse it when you could just toss it in the sea instead.
You're an idiot.
You can't drive on wet roads? Uhhhh, maybe you should go back to driving-school.
Lesbian Nazi Hookers Abducted by UFOs and Forced Into Weight Loss Programs - -all next week on Town Talk.
And only the americans could come up with something as pointless as an SUV. A 4 wheel drive vehicle that does 2 mpg, tips over in a tight swerve
has poor crash protection and if it does go off road it gets stuck. Compared to that an amphibious car sounds pretty sensible.
The UK has a long sad history of inventors producing things that are unaffordable, impractical, or both, owing to a cultural blindness that seems to prevent reality checks.
I think your interpretation is incorrect. The Brits have an amazing history of invention -- I think they could quite probably boast at being the greatest nation of inventors in the world. However, they are normally really crap at the business side of things.
Amphibian cars have sunk before on several occasions. What's stopping this one? And what happens when the car rusts out? I'm guessing they have compensated for water usage, but I'm of the school that believes that boats are designed to be boats and cars are designed to be cars. Combining the two isn't going to make for a top-quality full-use vehicle. And plus...
How many of you own boats? After even one season, they smell like mildew. You can use spray-nine to clean it, but it's still a boat smell, which is wonderful for a weekend or a couple weeks here and there, but in all honesty, do you want your car smelling like that? I can see some guy on a date...
Stud: "Do you like my James Bond super-car? It goes 100mph on land and 30 in the water!"
Date (pinching nose): "It smells like a zoo. Can I go home now?"
First - they make a big deal about how this car can "go over 100MPH on land". SO WHAT! Sitting in my garage I have a car that can go over 130MPH - more if I pull the civilian chip from the engine and put a cop chip in.
Second - is the Thames as polluted as some of the other major rivers near population centers (sorry, centres)? If so, then I damn sure wouldn't want to go hotrodding around on it in an open boat - talk about your shitty experiences!
Third - for the cost of this vehicle, I can stop working for several years, and not have to commute at all. Alternatively, I can work somewhere that isn't as crowded, and not have to deal with the commute. I could also buy a damn fine car, a damn fine boat, a damn fine boat trailer for the boat, a damn fine truck to tow the boat trailer, and probably still have money left over for a damn fine camper for the damn fine truck to stay in.
This vehicle seems to be target to the same crowd as the H2 Hummer is - folks with far more money than common sense.
www.eFax.com are spammers
A Land Rover is not an SUV though; there is nothing "Sports" about it. It is an all-round Utility Vehicle though, much beloved by farmers and "upper class" land-owners though. Only in the mid-90's did it become a fashionable town car, and that didn't last too long. Anyone driving a clean Land Rover around a town is assumed to be a total prick these days.
Suggesting this could relieve congestion is just stupid.
MP3 Search Engine
I don't know about you, but many of the 'well-to-do' folks I have run into who have nice cars are some of the cheapest people around when it comes to paying for things that nobody can see...
That's why you hear stories of folks who make millions of [currency] per year and pay nearly nothing in taxes (in the U.S.); why pay for it when you can't flaunt it!
Crash Protection? A guy rear-ended my mom's Durango at 60 mph in a pickup while she was at a dead stop. She drove the Durango home with a busted rear windshield, the 4x4 S-10 that hit her left on a wrecker with the engine beside it. If she was in her old Lumina she would have been pushed up in front of the semi in front of her & would probably be dead. And you'd be hard pressed to get that SUV stuck, believe me I've tried. Whether you'd like to admit it or not some people do have a use for an SUV, and I'm not talking about soccer moms that carry herds of children around. Another thing, why do people rail on SUVs so badly, a 2 wheel-drive v6 SUV gets about the same gas milage as a minivan, but I don't see anyone complaining about them.
Jaysyn
There is a war going on for your mind.
that's a load of shit. vehicles (yes even the hummer) are designed to have crumple zones in the front and rear. regardless of who hits what there will be irreparable damage to both vehicles.
SUV's don't make the driver and it's occupants any safer, they just make the road more dangerous to everyone else.
If SUVs are safer then why do American road stats show that you are more likely to die in one? Mainly due to the fact that American SUVs are a con based on 1970s truck designs - half of them don't even have independant rear suspensions. Have you ever tried cornering in an Explorer? Compare that to an X5 and you will see how an SUV can handle when made in Germany.
As for the big vehicle vs. smaller vehicle argument where do you stop? Are you in some kind of arms race? The only reason the Toyota would get totalled is because some moron is driving 15 tons of SUV. If the other car was a normal sized vehicle then they would both be fine. Why not buy yourself an 18 wheeler - then the guy in the Hummer would be toast.
It is still faster then some of British motorways in peak hours. And no speed cameras. Yet.
Actually, someone (I think MG) 30 years ago did something similar and people even used it to cross the Channel. You can see it in some of the early Grzhimek movies about Serengetty. It got banned on safety ground at the end.
Baker's Law: Misery no longer loves company. Nowadays it insists on it
http://www.sigsegv.cx/
If SUVs are safer then why do American road stats show that you are more likely to die in one?
Simple: they don't. They show that you are more likely to SURVIVE if you are in an SUV which has a collision. That's why they are safer.
http://www.mrtraffic.com/suv.htm
Mainly due to the fact that American SUVs are a con based on 1970s truck designs - half of them don't even have independant rear suspensions.
A con? Whatever. They're designed to be the new, more hip mini-van, and they perform admirably for that task. If you need to carry 8 people on a 4 hour drive, that toyota prius gets awfully crowded. I know how they're advertised, but I don't work for an ad agency so I have no control over that. Everyone with intelligence knows that they are not really designed for driving straight up mountains. If you believe that they are, please remove yourself from the gene pool immediately. (I know *some* are really meant for off-road use, but in general, SUVs fill the same role as mini-vans)
Have you ever tried cornering in an Explorer? Compare that to an X5 and you will see how an SUV can handle when made in Germany.
Yes, actually, I have. I had NO PROBLEM taking corners at reasonable speeds with reasonable caution. If I wanted a vehicle that drove like a Lotus, guess what? I'd buy a Lotus. If I want a vehicle to cart around a family + friends in comfort, and also be able to shove a ton of groceries/luggage/lumber/whatever in there, then I'm going to buy an SUV.
As for the big vehicle vs. smaller vehicle argument where do you stop? Are you in some kind of arms race? The only reason the Toyota would get totalled is because some moron is driving 15 tons of SUV. If the other car was a normal sized vehicle then they would both be fine. Why not buy yourself an 18 wheeler - then the guy in the Hummer would be toast.
Yeah, the SUV is certainly the largest common passenger vehicle. Of course, pickups and vans have been around far longer, and in many cases have worse rearward vision, worse handling, and worse gas milage. It's not an arms race for me, as I drive a 4 door econo-box. I just don't think that SUVs are Satan. I personally believe that SUVs gained popularity so quickly because people were tired of the 8 foot by 5 foot 'sedans' that have been churned out since the '80s. (yes, I know that's an exaggeration, it's for effect, like your '15 tons of SUV') If you crash two 'normal-sized' vehicles together, people in both cars are equally likely to be killed. If you crash 2 SUVs together, the same applies. (although the chances of being killed at all are smaller) It's when a sedan/coupe/motorcycle and an SUV have a collision that the SUV driver is far more likely to survive.
As for why I don't buy an 18-wheeler, well, I don't feel like getting my commercial license. If I felt like I needed an 18-wheeler, say for hauling a large cargo across country, I'd get one. If I need a vehicle for carrying lots of stuff/people, I'll get an SUV. Trying to get soccer moms to buy a prius or a kia rio or something is just stupid.
http://xkcd.com/386/
Would this be practical in London? I live in New York, and honestly I can't think of any situation in which taking to the river would be faster than driving. The main problem in NY is that there are no access points to the rivers. It is basically a 5-10 foot drop off a wall anywhere within 15 miles of downtown.
So to get to the airport I'd be looking at driving 15 miles out of my way in traffic to get to someplace to put in, then another 15 miles on the water, then another search for a place to get out.
The normal roads are bad, but not THAT bad.
He's not an idiot. It's just the way everyone's educational system works. Lot's of flag-waving and chants of "we are the best". Go and ask various people from Britain, Japan, USA and Cuba how WW2 or the Cuban missile crisis started, and you'll get entirely different answers from each. No one wants to admit they are at fault, or that they didn't think of something first.
Propaganda begins in the first grade. The catholics have know this for centuries.
OK, let's see what you're saying here...
If SUVs are safer then why do American road stats show that you are more likely to die in one?
Simple: they don't. They show that you are more likely to SURVIVE if you are in an SUV which has a collision. That's why they are safer.
http://www.mrtraffic.com/suv.htm
What you gave there are not actual road safety statistics, but a survey, which may, or may not, reflect reality. As a contrast this site says that you are three times more likely to die in an accident when you're driving an SUV than when you're driving a regular passenger car.
I tried interpreting the actual road safety statistics from the NHTSA, but it's suffienctly obscured to not be easy to interpret. Maybe you'll have better luck.
A con? Whatever. They're designed to be the new, more hip mini-van, and they perform admirably for that task. If you need to carry 8 people on a 4 hour drive, that toyota prius gets awfully crowded.
The reason the original poster called them a con is because they are. They're a way of cheating the government into making you pay less taxes. You pay lower taxes on light trucks (why I have no idea), so the SUV was invented as a way of selling cars cheaper. Never mind that truck frames aren't really designed to build cars on. Now, thanks to some great marketing, people consider SUV's cool, but don't let yourself be fooled into thinking that the coolness was the reason SUV's were originally made. Also, this is why it's not possible to build a safe SUV. If you use a car-like frame, it automatically gets classified as a car, and falls into the higher tax bracket.
If you do need to carry 8 people on a 4 hour drive, then great. By all means, buy an SUV. But most people who buy SUV's do not buy them because they need them, they buy them because they want them.
I had NO PROBLEM taking corners at reasonable speeds with reasonable caution.
That's nice, but those aren't the corners he was talking about. The corners he mentioned were the oh-my-gawd-there's-a-guy-in-the-middle-of-the-road kind of emergency manouvers. SUV's simply can not make that kind of corners, and it wouldn't be reasonable to expect them to, since they are, esentially, trucks, and not cars. Also, they have abnormally high braking distances. So, driving an SUV you're much more likely to get into fenderbenders because you couldn't stop in time.
Remember, accidents don't happen when you're doing something reasonable, they happen when you're doing something unreasonable.
Trying to get soccer moms to buy a prius or a kia rio or something is just stupid.
See, the thing is, the idea of the soccer mom is badly exagerated. I highly doubt if more than 10 percent of SUV owners need the space. And I mean really need it, not use it from time to time. If you need to move lumber, you can rent a light truck for a day, and you'll probably save money that way because your normal car will be cheaper to run. If you're picking up all the kids from a soccer match, how about asking ONE other parent to pick up kids too in their car? Suddenly the need for the SUV vanishes.
I repeat, people don't buy SUV's because they need them, they buy them because they want them. Should people always get what they want? I'd say that if what they want hurts other people, then no. And there is definite proof (as you pointed out yourself) that in a collision with a SUV you are more likely to die than in a collision with a car. Since they are a menace on the road, and serve no useful purpose (other than wildly exagerated, unlikely circumstances), I personally wouldn't object to an outright ban of them. Or at the very least, as in Europe, to have them taxed according to their engine size. In europe you'll notice there are very few SUV's, because people can't afford them. People who need to move lots of people buy minivans (
The problem is that too many people try to drive SUVs like their little 2-door compact, and that is inherently dangerous. They (SUVs) have a higher center of gravity, stiffer suspension, and a shorter (relative to overall size) wheelbase. It takes a different style of driving, just like a jeep and porsche take different styles.
Now, I drive a 1/2 ton pickup, and so a SUV is basically just like having a heavy shell welded on. It's no problem for me to drive, because I _drive it like a truck_!
"Faith: Belief without evidence in what is told by one who speaks without knowledge, of things without parallel." - A.B.