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Open Source Car — 20 Year Lease, Free Fuel For Life
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.'"
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.
Well I guess that means they aren't planning on marketing this in the Northeast, or anywhere that there's occasionally snow on the ground. I doubt that much of that 700 lbs would *not* be riddled with rust long before that lease would run out. Seriously, why lease a car for 20 years? And what'd the lease payment be? Not to mention the fact that you could probably just buy the damn thing (or maybe even a nicer car) using a 20 year car loan and cover the fuel out of pocket for far less than what you'd pay these jokers. Effectively locking in the cost of fuel for 20 years may sound attractive, but in practice it's more likely a win-win for the company --sure, you don't pay extra when fuel prices go up, but you also miss out on the downward fuel price fluctuations. The company is certain to make more money from you than you'll get out in fuel in any case, since if the prices are such that the deal would seem to work out in your favor, the company will just go bankrupt.
700lbs? 1/2 the weight of a SmartCar? An enclosed go-kart.
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.
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
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.
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.
"The agriculture ministry is not in charge of Gundam" - Japanese ministry official.
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.
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.
[RIAA] says its concern is artists. That's true, in just the sense that a cattle rancher is concerned about its cattle.
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.
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. 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.
If a job's not worth doing, it's not worth doing right.
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.
If a job's not worth doing, it's not worth doing right.
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.
Mod me up/Mod me down: I wont frown as I've no crown
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?
It's been a long time.