Alternative Energy Policies a Boon For Inflatable Electric Car

Brian Stretch writes with a story about the Mini Utility Vehicle prototype from XP Vehicles, an electric car that is partly inflatable. The recent struggles of the auto industry and a political climate that supports the development of alternative energy vehicles have given the car a better chance at actually hitting the market. Quoting: "Building a car takes many years and tens to hundreds of millions of dollars traditionally. XP is able to cut a lot of the costs and timeframe because its car has 70 percent less parts than a regular car, and the company is using novel materials that require simpler factory devices, and production and manufacturing processes that lower the cost to deploy. ... The seat is inflatable, the dashboard is inflatable, and the internal structure and carrying racks are inflatable, or a mesh suspension. Instead of requiring six-axis robots, XP uses radio frequency welders that look like giant waffle irons. The factory equipment is much less expensive and the car simply has less parts that could fail. The motors are built into the rear wheels in most XP prototypes. The first cars to reach the market will have two rear hub motors and a motor controller, that's it."

Comments

less parts to fail..

[timmarhy]

... means nothing when the few parts you do have are prone to disaster.

never fear though - this is yet another imaginary product (they have nothing more than a computer rendering ffs), you need not fear that your car will deflate on you any time soon.

RTFA for such gem's as this "What we have discovered is that the insurance industry is not going to let electric cars run extension chords all over the place because you trip and fall" - genius, just pure genius.

Re:Just don't buy the upgrade

[operator_error]

Or be in when it goes "blue screen"...

Well, it does make prominent use of Microsoft Sharepoint, so color me skeptical on this point too.

[the] XP [car -edited] is basing its collaborative space around the Microsoft Office Sharepoint Server and also partnering with Autodesk

Too bad. Otherwise, I like the concept & business-model. I guess I'll have to wait for the open-source linux model to be developed. But as someone else commented, there's a so many Microsoft buzzwords thrown around, this could just be a hoax. The CEO's name is Redmond, and they use SharePoint prominently, and they make cars too? I'd like to see a prospectus.