DIY Hybrid Car Kit

Hybride And The Groom writes "Building hybrids uses machinery that pollutes the environment. The solution? Ship the parts of a hybrid individually and get your customers to put the car together themselves. That's exactly what Robert Q Riley Enterprises is doing, according to a story on CNet today, with its XR-3 hybrid. It'll cost you $25,000 for the bits, plus zero dollars in manufacture, I hope. Better yet, cough up $200 for the blueprints and schematics and even build the parts yourself. It's no secret that many hybrid drivers are smug enough as it is. Allow them to brag about having built the damn cars themselves and we might be entering obscenely smug territory."

Comments

"Zero dollars in manufacture"

[Mononoke]

It'll cost you $25,000 for the bits, plus zero dollars in manufacture, I hope.

Only if your time is worth zero dollars.

Re:"Zero dollars in manufacture"

[Qzukk]

Only if your time is worth zero dollars.

Or the entertainment you receive from putting together your own toys is greater than the cost of your time, in which case you might even "profit".

Re:"Zero dollars in manufacture"

[Beardo the Bearded]

It'll cost you $25,000 for the bits, plus zero dollars in manufacture, I hope.

Only if your time is worth zero dollars.

So just like Open Source Software, then.

It should go over very well here.

For the record, if my car wasn't under a very comprehensive warranty for the next five years, I'd order the parts and do the conversion just so I could say that I'd done it.

Re:"Zero dollars in manufacture"

[Shotgun]

Having nearly completed building a one-off airplane, I can attest to the fact that a one-off greatly increases the amount of 'stuff' going into the waste stream. It seems that each part made for the airplane requires a mold, jig or custom clamp to hold it in place. Buy the time I finish, I will have built the equivalent of 2.5 airplanes, and none of those molds, jigs or clamps will be useful to anyone else.

Let there be no doubt. Massive manufacturing operations really do decrease the waste-stream volume on a per unit basis.

Motorcycle, not a car

[MightyYar]

Like so many of these things, it's a motorcycle - not a car. It only has 3 wheels so that they don't have to meet safety standards.

Who knew you could lighten up a car if you stripped out all of the safety equipment?

Safety

[HalAtWork]

So has this thing been crash tested? Do you have to get the car certified after you build it, so that you can drive it on the road? Are you any more liable if anything happens to a passenger, motorist, or pedestrian, in such a car?

Re:uh, no, that's not the reason

[thered2001]

I agree completely. The first part of this article makes an assumption which doesn't seem too solid: that automotive machinery pollutes. If this is a reference to the byproducts of the power generated to run the machines, then I fail to see how running smaller machines in your home will improve the situation. Plus, power (and pollution?) is still needed to make the parts for a car no matter who puts it together. Sounds like someone is just trying to appear 'green' and cash in on the hybrid craze with kit 'car' (actually a motorcycle as an astute reader notes above).

Spare time

[phorm]

Well, if you enjoy tinkering with stuff and would otherwise have the time free anyhow, then it might even be that the time is of a negative cost.

That is to say, if you spend $25k for the unit, but spend 200 hours being rather entertained by putting it together, then you've just spend $25k on the parts and saved $x on whatever else you might have spend that money on (movies, video games, trips, etc).

I do a lot of the additions/repairs around the house. If might cost *more* than a plumber/carpenter/etc if you count what my day job's hourly rate is, but for me the cost of supplies is paying for both the renos and the entertainment of doing them.

One man's burden is another man's leisure, I'd rather be working on neat projects around the house than baking under a hot sun swinging a stick at a dimpled white ball.