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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."
Why a convertible? Riding it is going to be like one of those amusement park rides that gets everyone wet.
> "The Thames is a perfect location to make use
> of this vehicle as it has no speed limit and
> is greatly under-utilised."
Those silly Brits. We have speed limits posted for all bodies of water here in the US.
It's Slashdot's evil twin... SlashNOT
Can someone Loan me the $295,000 dollars to buy it?
Also I cant wait for one to be stolen in Los Angeles and the resulting police chase. I'd love to see the looks on the cops faces when it drives into one of the aquaducts and gets away from the cars at least. I'm sure the helicopter pioliot will be laughing at least.
The concept for this car is pretty cool, but there's just something I like about riding in a converted WWII amphibious assault vehicle. They're for different markets, but I'd prefer the "Ducks" to this car.
The company responsible, Aquada, suggest it's a good way to avoid congestion.
Well, it is, if you can prove it won't pollute the waters.
BTW, I don't know how it is elsewhere, but in France, boats over a given cylinder volume require their pilot to hold a license.
Trolling using another account since 2005.
This is until the Thames gets over-crowded.
If you get into a fender-bender on the water, does it sink?
At 150,000 pounds, it doesn't seem that unreasonable.
Only the English could come up with something like that. Remember the Reliant Robin? http://www.3wheelers.com/robin.html Those weird Brit inventors are unbelievably geeky.
Saw this on the telly last night. There is congestion charges for entering London City - I wonder if one would avoid the charges by boating up the Thames?
they say you could take it on daytrips to france as it has a range of 50 miles (the english channel is 22miles long) so you can drive there, drive 6 miles, and drive back, just as long as none of the waves are bigger than foot you won't get wet (why they chose a convertible i`ll never know).
Comment: Yes I realise the username 'fuckfuck101' makes me sound intelligent, no you cannot buy it from me.
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.
I have run a boat on the Thames for some years now and like all other boats on that river it has to obey the speed limit, a stately 4.8 MPH.
One for the marina in Monaco methinks.
Oxford Dictionaries Online
But when will the missle and torpedo options be available?
--Goat
CEO, Goat Software
Goatblog
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
I for one welcome our new beowulf cluster of... oh, never mind...
Perhaps the answer to the problem of teenagers dropping bricks from motorway and railway bridges is to sue Tetris.
I can post the only kinda Linux car joke that I know!!!
-B
Would driving this car require a boating license at the same time. What happens if you're pulled over by the harbor cops or something, would you have to produce some other form of licensing to drive this on water... Now just think of touring France or Holland and seeing this car in action. Sure it sounds nice but does it really serve a purpose? My guess is, it won't be long until government claims only drug runners will be buying this.
MoFscker
And I saw it on the front page of The Press this morning (in Christchurch, NZ, it is now 11pm)
This sentence no verb
We'll hear everyday of congestion on the Thames, because every dandy will have those cars.
More seriously, I don't know how much traffic there's on the Thames, but I don't think the amphibious car will fare well in the wake of the big ship. And since the article doesn't talk about the possibility of getting upside down. Anyway, it's clear that you'll nead to avoid going in rough water if you don't want to get wet seats...
... To all the pollution in the Thames? Ok, so we don't dump raw sewage into it like in the Victorian times but I'd hardly bathe in it.
--
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.
Many rivers in the UK have speed limits far lower than the 30mph top speed of this vehicle to stop bank erosion, and why do they insist in the article that the Thames is underused?
There are lots of boats on the Thames already - often rowers in lightweight crew boats that swamp easily. They can do without tidal waves being generated.
What about the all the roads getting wet'n'slippery for normal people?
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
I just watched the video on their website...I expected it to be boxy and ugly, as I would imagine a lot of compromise would have to be made to design a vehicle like this. I was pleasantly surprised to see it actually looks pretty stylish. Makes sense...the price tag is pretty hefty, so you'd have to have some serious scratch to buy one, and nobody wants to spend a few hundred grand to look like you're driving a box.
We don't have a state-run media we have a media-run state.
Panurge has posted for the last time. Thanks for the positive moderations.
How long until the River Thames gets congested with these amphibious boats? If there were lots of these boats trying to use the river, things would get messy quickly, especially because of the lack of laws. The river would get congested and be just as bad as the roads in no time. But it still would be fun!
--- to swing on the spiral...
I wouldn't bother buying one of these if I lived in London! The Thames (at least as far in as London) is a controlled river - all traffic is directed by the habour master (bit like 2D air traffic control), so you can't just zoom up and down the river as you wish. They also limit the amount of traffic, so you might end up having to wait for a slot. There'd be parking to pay for too. All in all, I think the London Underground is a better bet. Chances are you'd have to use it anyway to get from the river to your final destination. None of the other waterways around there are really big enough for such a vehicle.
-- Steve
I saw this on the BBC news last night.
The funny thing was (which the presenter pointed out), was that the location they had used for showing off their new toy was in front of the Millenium Dome in London - a symbol of overspending development on something no one wants to use!
Saying that, it does act like quite a good speed boat on water. The wheels fold up and the bottom of the car is shaped like a hull, so it does look quite like an average speed boat (although a rather cheap looking one) and lift up out the water at speed.
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?
With a 100mph top speed I think they're being a bit generous calling it a sports car. Even your
average family box can go faster than that!
We've got one of these amphibious cars that tootles up and down our river every so often already...
www.amphicar.com
This "new" one is just one in a long line of press releases from marketing people who haven't looked into the history of the concept... mind you this new one does look cool...
Donald 'Duck' Dunn: We had a band powerful enough to turn goat piss into gasoline.
Venice has been doing this for years now, 'cept at a much slower, civilized rate.
Where's the flying cars?
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?"
I can't begin to think about the problems about putting large numbers of cars on water. Imagine having to wear life-jackets in order to go to work. Traffic accidents could lead to drownings. What about the up-keep associated with water vehicles? Also, who wants wet tires when you drive?
Brought to you by the Artificial Idea Factory.
Why not just buy an Untralight? Sure, then you need a a stretch of open space like a runway, but in many parts of the world that's much easier to find than a river that just happens to follow your commute.
Put powered wheels on it and you've got a "flying car" (who needs a floating car?) if you're in this for the bragging rights.
-Pete
Soccer Goal Plans
Somehow, whilst typing at your PC, you forgot to add the computer to your list.
That noise you hear in the background is Charles Babbage spinning in his grave...
"Accept that some days you are the pigeon, and some days you are the statue." - David Brent, Wernham Hogg
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
I'll only be impressed when it flies.
;-)
(sorry, couldn't resist that one)
Isn't Aquada the group Bin Laden runs? Maybe this is really for fast getaways over land or sea? Maybe this is an improvement on the exposives under a rubber raft concept.
Hmmm...
-Pete
Soccer Goal Plans
Just commenting on all those jovial "crazy brits" postings. Mr Alan Gibbs is from New Zealand, although he was in partnership with a Brit, Neil Jenkins, and got Lotus (UK) to do some feasibility studies. The concept work was done by Eurotech and MSX in Detroit, USA. The vehicle is being built in the UK because we have a good engineering record and a lot of expertise in low volume car manufacture and "racing" (especially F1) cars.
Longer video available here [nzoom.com]
- The airtrain (Aerotrain)
- Aircraft carrier Charles de Gaulle
- Nuclear waste reprocessing, heh ? What about SuperPhenix?
- Oh, yeah, Concorde as well, France was so proud about it
- The infamous "ligne Maginot"
- Minitel, so successful in France, but not to be found anywhere else
- "La 5eme Republique" which brought the country on the verge of chaos on 2002-04-21
I could go on like this...In Soviet Russia, our new overlords are belong to all your base.
The aquada website says it is powerful enough to pull a water skiier. The question is, does it have the fittings for a tow rope? Now THAT would be a blast. No more towing boats with your SUV.
Oh, sorry, people born after 1985 tend to think they're the same thing, don't they?
The company responsible, Aquada, suggest it's a good way to avoid congestion.
Well, certainly. After getting that much saline seaspray in your nose every weekday morning, you'll never have to complain about congestion again. Taxicabs could even market it as a remedy during the flu season.
Picture of an LCAC here including a short .mov of one in action.
I see AOL links to Slashdot now.
World Wide Web is not the same thing as Internet HTTP/HTML was invented by Tim Berners-Lee at CERN in the early 90's.
While we're on the subject, a Brit also co-invented the concept of packet switching while working for the Post Office at the same time as it was invented at RAND in the U.S
Wow, people with to much money start strange projects. What ever happened to just blowing it on, well, blow?
Come the revolution, the Bourgeois, Capitalistic, "A PARKING STICKER HOLDERS", will be first against the wall!
Great, now not only will people have to worry about accidents during rush hour, but there's the added excitement of the possibility of drowning.
Seriously though, there are specific rules regarding the use of waterways, and there are enough problems with boaters who are ignorant of them. The last thing needed is a bunch of harried commuters with no clue about the rules and rights of way of navigation on the water.
Facts are stubborn things.
it has better rust proofing than the last water-capable car, the Amphicar, produced in the 60s IIRC. It had a rather nasty tendency to rust and then sink when introduced to the water...of course, this IS a British car, and after owning several (TVR, which is in large part Fibreglas, MGB, which is in large part rust) I would think twice about getting near any body of water with this new one.
So rise up, all ye lost ones, as one, we'll claw the clouds.
Okay, maybe this isn't as obvious, but shouldn't the Aquada, which is purported to tow water-skiers have some sort of monstrously tall, bookshelf of an air foil on the back, that doubles as a pull bar for waterskiing ropes? They've been on other makes for years now. Just watch any recent car-oriented movie, and you'll likely see one.
.....we called it the bat mobile:)
Carpe Diem: Seize The Day!
I suppose you want us to also pronounce it like 'Temms' rather than how it is spelt? ;)
This garbage invention (how many people are really going to want to use it?) got wall to wall coverage in the British media yesterday - even though they made all these ludicrous and bogus claims (eg Thames has no speed limit).
You have to wonder whether they were giving the hacks loadsa free drinks or something.
Predictably just about every report mentioned James Bond - the whole thing fed into the British sense of themselves as pluky amateurs (as James Bond surely is).
Absolutely crap.
Maybe, it's just a good way to avoid profit.
Will code a sig generator for food
In London in the swinging '60's, it was hard to spend more than a week or two without encountering an Amphicar somewhere on the road. This new product is certainly a lot less ugly.
This makes as little sense as the flying car. It sounds good until you realize that any large number of these running around would be a disaster. There'd be a car boat at the bottom of some river and another car plane would nosedive into the earth or through somebody's ceiling every week.
I guess this would make living on an inland island's seclusion more convienient...
While it may not be possible to implement this car/boat in all locations, I have to think that people living near smaller cities that exist along rivers, like the Murray River in Australia would benefit from the ability to convert from boat to car and vice versa. Venice Italy is another possible example, only because I just watch the italian job, but surely there are plenty of cities that could benefit from an invention such as this.
Of course.
It is our language, after all.
(my fiancee is both American and a linguist, so you can imagine how well that line goes down when I come out with it at home...)
You better do as we say, or we'll throw you in it!
I don't think I've ever seen one with a roof.
Boffoonery - downloadable Comedy Benefit for Bletchley Park
...opinion from a Michigander, where you're never more than 3 miles from a natural lake or river anywhere in the state: This is the most useless, stupid idea I've seen in a while.
I'm not sure about the UK, but over here rivers aren't usually given to any kind of easy access. In urban areas factories, docks, and various other kinds of buildings litter the shorelines. In more rural settings, rivers are bordered by swamps, ravines, and steep banks.
On the other hand, *lakes* people go well out of their way to build access ramps to. Then again, if you've got a water-car on a lake...your navigation options are somewhat limited.
And thinking of *driving* out of that river or lake over the embankment across a field to get back to the road? Think again. Just whose land are you driving across to bridge the gap? Private land? The owner'll have your head on a plate for eroding the bank and potentially causing floods. Your own land? If you own the land, what's the point of all this anyway? Public land? The first Department of Natural Resources officer that catches your driving on state land away from a trail will jail you, impound your car, and subject you to severe fines.
Speaking of the DNR, the first time the car leaves an oil slick (or transmission fluid, grease, brake fluid, engine coolant) in the water or on the bank -- public or private land -- you'll start piling up fines that make the price of the car look small by comparison.
I'll just wait for my flying car, thank you.
Get off my lawn.
> HTTP/HTML was invented by Tim Berners-Lee at CERN in the early 90's.
Yes, which would make it a Swiss and/or French development, depending on which part of the complex he was taking a crap in when he thought of it. Otherwise a goodly number of American inventions and developments should be considered German, Chinese and Russian.
OK, then point #2 is a non-issue. I'm glad to hear that the Thames is clean - I am a quarter of the world away, so I have no direct experience with it.
www.eFax.com are spammers
This thing will only be driven by bloody hairdressers at the best of times due to its remarkable resemblance to a Mazda MX5.
Only a bloke would drive a gadget car like this so we think that it should look more like a lotus, tvr or land rover.
WARNING: This joke will not work on the continental States.
Kingdom of Loathing (www.kingdomofloathing.com) Addicted is me
The only congestion it will remove is in your bank account.
It is by the juice of the coffee bean that thoughts acquire speed, the teeth acquire stains. The stains become a warning
There's a Yahoo slideshow of the vehicle being driven on and off the Thames, here.
The Amphicar was an early example of the amphibious car. I think it was a product of the Netherlands, but I'm not sure. Was available in the 1960's, and was slow and underpowered. If you saw one on the street you could look under the back bumper and see the propellers. I did a quick Google on amphicar and found a bunch of sites, including this one.
No sig? Sigh...
As everybody knows, the UK drives on the left. Well, on the roads it does; on the rivers it drives on the right. So if this thing is going down a flooded road (a good reason to buy it), which side should it drive on? Every time the wheels float off or touch ground, it should change sides. And if, on boar mode, it meets (say) an agricultural tractor going the other way, you have a free fender bender right there.
Consciousness is an illusion caused by an excess of self consciousness.
DC traffic is horrible, and the slow rebuilding of the Wilson Bridge across the Potomac is making is even worse.
On the other hand, DC has many public marinas on the Potomac with boat ramps. There is one in Georgetown, one near National Airport, two in Alexandria, and a few in southern PG county.
I don't think you want to be jumping a convertable car off a ramp into the water.
Speedlimits are the exception on US waters. There are lots of no-wake zones. Some parts of the ICW have speed limits. And everywhere, you're responsible for the damage your wake causes, and generally for operating the vessel safely. But on most waters, there aren't speed limits per se.
Every morning, I see a disabled lady using her Segway to go to and from the a Washington, DC rail station. Sometimes when I'm waiting for a train and reading, I'll hear a quiet whizzing sound, look up, and she just went right by me! It makes Segways less of a joke to me.
> It makes Segways less of a joke to me.
I don't find that particular use funny either. In fact Kamen has had some great designs in the disability arena. But that's not how he marketed the Segway: it was supposed to be this great transportation paradigm-shifting phenomenon around which future cities would be built. Puh-lease! Right now it's almost exclusively a yuppie toy.
Only the British would *admit* to inventing Viagra.
Here, in the US, we have commercials for it, but nobody *needs* to use it, because we have enormous turgid 12-cylinder American penises that get 3mpg and are not in compliance with the Kyoto accord.
Who cares? Where are the flying cars that we were promised to get in the 21st Century?
i ate crayons when i was a kid and now i have two braincells and the blue ones taste nicer
Now that we have polluted the air lets get to work on polluting the water!
A clever person solves a problem. A wise person avoids it. -- Einstein
The last amphibious cars where too expensive.. these companies seem to be working on the idea that people will pay extra for this... they won't... they didn't the first time around. If they want it to work.. they need to get an automaker to build it in mass quantities so it can be priced affordably. That would be an approx. $350,000 CDN car. I don't even think that our upper class would shell out more then half a million for a toy that is no more then a fad in its current state.
- Jimbob
Take a look at the TAero from aerospectives.
Uh
"...it's a good way to avoid congestion..."
Are there many people who can afford $300,000 cars who spend a lot of time fighting commuter traffic jams?
-Styopa
The water taxi/bus system in Venice is quite fantastic. They even have free gondolas to get across certain parts of the canals where there aren't bridges. Now that's the way to travel!
Pitching this amphib as a way to solve London's travel problems is ridiculous, when they already have some good solutions (alternate driving days, blocking off certain parts of city from cars, etc).
Kinda makes a $4K scooter look pretty sensible, eh?
99.9999999% of the people in the world will never buy one of these - but I'll buy a Segway when it gets down to the price of a very very good bicycle or a low-end mini-cruiser (GS 250 / Virago 250) i.e. under $2900...
"Win treats sysadmins better than users. Mac treats users better than sysadmins. Linux treats everyone like sysadmins."
In Wisconsin they are considering requiring some sort of license for Jetskiers. They comprise 1% of the watercraft yet are involved in somewhere around 30-40% of the water accidents.
Didn't James Bond or Batman have one of these?
http://threetechguys.info Come, discuss Technology. Got a technology question? Come ask!
> The company responsible, Aquada, suggest it's a good way to avoid congestion."
Only for the first ones...
And only for a short time...
- For the complete works of Shakespeare: cat
> Right... 'Cause all normal power boats have enclosed tops...
This is insightful? Most normal power boats sit the pilot six feet above the waterline. Is the same true of this craft? To be insightful, you'd need to compare this craft to a johnboat going at 30 MPH.
Insightful, indeed.
Virg
Quiet! I don't care who was touching who! Don't make me come back there! Quiet Down! This is Mutiny! Mr. Spencer, see them all hanged! Ahh the family road/water trip
What sort of maritime law applies once you go in the water? What sort of strange "Boat-on-dry-land" laws exist in the UK (that once might have applied to dry dock, but might apply to the car)
meh
Pshaw. He was British, it came out of his head, so the invention was British. And besides, we know that BT invented hyperlinks.
Just wait until we see carpool lanes on lakes and rivers. :) "Two or more passengers only in this lane"..."Violators will be sunk". Gives a whole new meaning to the pool in carpool.
Thats a bit of a misstatement. Kamen didn't really market the Segway. Kamen really didn't say anything at all about it. The buzz about the Segway built up in the absence of any official information on it.
If you want to see something really cool that Kamen invented, check out his wheelchairs.
At 150,000 quid, it would certainly end any congestion in both my wallet and my bank account. I guess if you forced everyone to use this or a bus, it would certainly end road congestion since most of us would have to go back to public transportation.
Think global, act loco
I'm not sure if you're serious about this or not, so I'll take the serious tack in addressing it:
1.) Control: Driving an ultralight aircraft is not for the timid, or the unpracticed. It's a very dangerous vehicle, and failure in control is very often fatal. Not so with a ground vehicle. I can't imagine what it'd be like trying to fly an ultralight near a city, but let's just say I wouldn't want to be piloting it. The wind currents alone would be a complete nightmare. It's also virtually impossible to fly an ultralight in inclement weather, so you'd need some other way to get to work in rain or snow.
2.) Safety: Not only is an ultralight hard to handle, in the case of mechanical failure, you've got a rough ride to the ground in the best of circumstances. If your car stalls, you roll to a stop. Any mechanical failure other than engine trouble is likely to cause an ultralight to fall (think broken wing strut or a thrown propeller, or a landing wheel gone flat that'll cause a wreck when you touch down).
3.) Economy: In the best conditions (always flying with the wind, being able to fly straight to your destination instead of routing around flight lanes and airports), ultralights are not very fuel-economical. Most times, that's not the issue, since people fly these things for recreation, but it wouldn't save you much in operating costs to fly to work every day. This is not to mention that the insurance bill would be astronomical.
4.) Immobility: You can only take it from airstrip to airstrip. Your comment about powered wheels is only feasible if you invent some mechanism for removing and stowing the wings, since they'd be too wide for most motorways, and if you drove at the speed of traffic you'd lift off the road. At that point, you'd essentially be commuting on a busy roadway in a go-cart, which goes back to the safety issue, since it's got to be light to fly, and light craft fare very badly in fender-benders.
So, at this point, ground vehicles are it.
Virg
Amphibious cars are old hat, no one wanted them 30 years ago and no one wants them now (well, no one except for Sunbeam enthusiasts).
crazy dynamite monkey
If you can afford to spend 235k on a vehicle, you can afford to travel when the roads aren't as crowded.
This is just a novel toy.
.sigs are for post^Hers.
It has a top speed of 100mph and it's got to be lugging around a bunch of extra weight for this boat shit. It might look like a sports car, but I bet it drives like a boat. Er, on land, I mean.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
The Cubans beat them to it.
I don't see any red/green navlights to indicate unambiguoiusly who has the right of way when more than 1 of these vessels is present on the water. That means either there is only going to be one of these things, or that the operators will simply drive without regard to public safety, just like land-based sports cars. Do they have to turn on their blinkers when coming about? Can their seat cushion be used for a Personal Floatation Device[tm]? Boy, does this thing ever stretch the envilope.
Damn, that was stupid putting the PLA in charge. What, do they blow you up for speeding? Maybe have Arafat look at you all twitchy if you turn without signalling out there? Small wonder Britain has no amphibious cars.
-Looking for a job as a materials chemist or multivariat
What about the Dutton Mariner and Commander? Also known as "the world's first mass produced amphibious vehicle". Does 5.4 knots, and Tim Dutton (if I remember correctly) has also driven one over the English Channel.
-Funky M
No text.
Excuse me? Can you say "killer app"? Would you have the net at home, or more importantly, would your non-geek friends have it if it wasn't for WWW?
If www is worth arguing about as a British "invention" you've already lost the argument.
Oh, we can go back further than that. Packet switching, the basis of TCP, was invented in the UK. The US funded Arpanet is "just another protocol following the examples of many before it.".
But we are getting silly now. We could tribute the entire thing to Volta, you want to go back far enough!!
Get a bicycle!
Drill baby drill - on Mars
Anybody know how big a wake this thing produces? This is a big issue, the Stena HSS had to have a speed limit imposed on it in Belfast Lough because the fishing boats in the nearby villages were getting buffetted about against their moorings and damaged. Same for Loch Ryan. As far as I know, Stena are thinking about sailing to Cairnryan instead of Stranraer now because of this. The speed limit in the Loch is cutting the competitive edge that the HSS has over the slow boats.
Drill baby drill - on Mars
Sure, because so many major commuting routes are tied by waterways...
Neat, yes. Useful, no.
I would only get one of these if the Theme From Spy Hunter (aka "Peter Gunn") played constantly as I drove it.
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.
...a Lotus Esprit?
If I buy one, will I meet the company's secretrary, Miss Moneypenny?
Does it come with the babes too?
One man's pink plane is another man's blue plane.
I mean, c'mon, didn't these guys ever see the drag race scene from Grease?
"Prepare for the worst - hope for the best."
Nah forget it, they'll just put cameras all over the river now! I want an electric car, they dont have to pay the charge, but why are they all so ugly? More people would buy alternative cars if they wernt all designed by ponces, they look worse than smart cars!
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> Kamen really didn't say anything at all about it.
Hah! Now THAT'S a misstatement. How many talkshows did he demonstrate it on again, going on about how it's going to change urban lifestyle?
> check out his wheelchairs.
That's what I was talking about. The new model that rises on two wheels to provide access to high shelves and can tackle stairs is quite amazing. Given their price I just don't know how popular they will become.
I like the sound of this car, but for different reasons. It would totally suck as a way to avoid congestion (unless both your house and your office are on the riverbank and have convenient moorings you'll have to transition from car to boat and back to car again, and still use the roads, and if you're travelling a long way on the river the speed isn't /that/ great [30mph is good for a boat but slow by commuter standards]) but would be an awesome piece of kit for climbers wanting to reach inaccessible sea cliffs without the hassle of towing a RIB on a trailer, or people wanting to indulge in a spot of sea fishing, or who live in the Hebrides.
"'I pass the test,' she said. 'I will diminish, and go into the West, and remain Galadriel.'"
- JRR Tolkien.
"It's a genuine amphibian which has been an international project, but it's British engineering which has made it possible."
British Engineering...Meaning you'll eventually have to replace the engine with one that actually works, the body panels will be rusted through within 2 years, and the electrical system will start activating the brake-lights when you start the windshield wipers within 6 months.
"Curiosity killed the cat, but for a while I was a suspect."- Steven Wright
...were more bodies of water along side the freeways I'd go out and buy one of these to avoid the hell of my morning commute.
[[ the only 15 letter word that is spelled without repeating a letter is uncopyrightable: it may soon be, however. ]]
... who buys one of these getting in an accident, bending a door slightly. Ten minutes later they drive into the river without thinking and sink their car. Then if it's in the US, they sue the manufacturer for not telling them they couldn't do it. The company, of course, never thought someone would be that stupid so they are forced to notify everyone in the future.
Then the whole story gets on This is True and I get to laugh at them.
- "Nobody came out that night, not one was ever seen. But Old Man Stauf is waiting there, crazy sick and mean!"
Here in Alaska there are a lot of what I've heard referred to as SUSVEE, tracked amphibious troop carrier. That's what I want. Snowmachine, road rig, off-road rig, and amphib, too!
-cp-
Accidentally, just today I've learned that it takes an extra license for the water part, as you need a shipper's license (or whaddayacallit) if you go > 20 km/ h on a motorized boat.
So you need two licenses to drive one car!
"We can confirm that Debian does *not* ship the version with the trojan horse. Our version predates it." [CA-2002-28]
But I'd like to see that feature in a regular car, too. Nicer view for me when I'm driving, no side seat drivers allowed, and plenty room for passengers in the back to stretch their feet.
I was listening to the inventor (or at least the guy whose main idea it was) speaking on the radio this morning. He's actually a New Zealander, and initially went to Detroit to consult various auto engineers about his ideas. After a certain point though, he couldn't find the right mix of experience and qualifications in the USA for what he was trying to do. That's how he ended up going to the UK to develop and build the thing.
I can't seem to find a link to any photogrpahic evidence, but I clearly remember watching a show on the History Channel which showed several (functioning) amphibious cars which dated back to the early 50s (several were converted chevys and fords).
The idea is nothing new. It's been tried and failed many times. A huge problem is fuel economy, practicality, and above all else, rust. The cars usually didn't last more than a few years.
-- If you try to fail and succeed, which have you done? - Uli's moose
That reminds me of one of the psuedo-ads in GTAIII: "and in amphibious mode...it can cross rivers. So far I've only hit a few puddles, but it's good to know it's there"
Why would you ever need an amphibious car?
I'm a signature virus. Please copy me to your signature so I can replicate.
But can this get you around all those central district congestion-cams without having to pay a fee?
My other car is a 1984 Nark Avenger.
50 miles?!? What does it have, a 3 gallon gas tank? I couldn't find that information on the Aquada website, I sure hope it's a misprint and a zero is missing, otherwise at that "100 miles top speed" you'd be out of gas in 30 minutes :-/
my karma will be here long after I'm gone
The X5 is actually built in... Tennessee.. or perhaps it was Kentucky.
Regardless, the X5 sold in the U.S. is NOT built in Germany, it's built in the U.S.A.