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Hungarian Electric Car Splits Into Two Smaller Cars
Lanxon writes to mention that Antro, a Hungarian car manufacturer, is developing a new electric car that can split into two smaller cars. Antro plans to have it on the market by 2012. "The environmentally-conscious company started research back in 2002 and, with backing from various local sponsors, has invested 1.5 million euros in market research and development of a working prototype. The Antro Solo concept is a three-passenger car, with a hybrid drive and solar cells on its roof that the company says could generate enough electricity for up to 20km a day at city speeds. Futuristic looking in itself, the grander plan for the car is much more audacious: Antro intends to allow users to be able to connect two Antro Solos to form a six-passenger Antro Duo. Or perhaps more interesting still, owners of a Duo could split the car into two smaller Solos should Mum have different weekend plans to Dad. Or if they divorce."
People don't like futuristic looking stuff. If they did, we'd all be wearing white or silver jumpsuits.
Great, so now you can separate the saucer section and let the civilians escape while the crew remains on the battle bridge to distract the Romulans.
Give me Classic Slashdot or give me death!
I wonder how long it took them to come up with that one.
Keep It Simple Stupid.
Sounds like they watched this old Australian film: Malcolm
Call me when they make a car capable of reproduction by binary fission.
What I always wanted in a car!
Grand Theft Half Auto?
Just like over the border in Yugoslavia with the Yugo and its wagon model the Wego. Great minds think alike !
"You doing OK back there, kids?"
"Kids?"
"Oh, where have they gone off to now?"
What, you mean, you don't? Hmm... maybe that's why they were looking at me like that in the last meeting ;)
A polar bear is a cartesian bear after a coordinate transform.
Not only is a car that splits in two a ridiculous idea, both cars will most probably never comply with the required safety standards in Europe and the US.
-- Cheers!
It's hard to take Antro when the car looks like a worm.
GENERATION O98346: The first time you see this, copy it into your sig and remove a random number from the generation. T
You'll shit bricks over their concept scooter.
GENERATION O98346: The first time you see this, copy it into your sig and remove a random number from the generation. T
So it can do "up to 20km" per day. Well we all know that means that any you actually get will only manage 15km as the 20 will be without stopping, with no lights or radio on etc... And on a dark rainy winters days lets say that will drop to 10 km. And you've got to get there and back so that's 5km away you can get if you want to come home. Plus who will risk running out of power half way home? So you'll never risk more than about 3km away from home. SO great, a car that if you charge it up all day, you can get to places almost 2 miles away. Handy :)
Constructicons joke in 4...3...2..
It would be a bus!
If you don't know where you are going, you will wind up somewhere else.
On reading this, does anyone else think of a circus car that splits in half, with clowns falling out both sections?
Or those cars in the movies that break in half, with the front half going one way and the guys in the back frantically trying to keep the back part going in the same direction.
Who would win this election: Andrew Weiner vs Andrew Weiner's weiner.
Candid Camera did a prototype of such a vehicle a long, long time ago...
Follow that car!
[car splits in half and goes separate ways]
Which one??
~REZ~ #43301. Who'd fake being me anyway?
There are always half a dozen spots about a foot too small on my block... so break up the car and park each half separately! Brilliant!
I tried to find this vehicle in my Dirty Hungarian Phrasebook, to no avail.
I guess it is full of eels like the hovercraft, though probably electric eels.
That makes my nipples explode with delight.
Something like this:
http://vne-resource.iol.co.za/30/picdb/1/7/105701
With some minor detail changes, like the badge. Cos it's practical, affordable, easy to maintain, people can actually use it every day, put the shopping in the boot, the kids in the back seat, sit in a reasonably comfortable position, see what's going on in front and behind. etc.
It will not look anything like this:
http://www.geekologie.com/2007/12/07/future-car-1.jpg
I mean... WTF?
Deleted
I hope that doesn't mean the Duo has two steering wheels, else it's gonna be James May's entry in the Top Gear Limousine competition all over again.
So you get two 1.5 passenger cars? Cool! I wonder what plane you use to divide your #3.
Yet so cool
I care not for your karma and your mod points.
Heading toward a toll booth in a Solo? Find another, hook up, split the toll, and go on your way! Might work at parking meters too.
the idea is hardly new - I permanently mounted a pair of 18-volt, 5-watt amorphous solar cells on the rear parcel-shelf to top up the battery when its parked and subsidise the electricity used when running.
the car is a diesel Ford Mondeo (Mercury Mystique in USA) so I don't get any traction power from my solar cells, but it makes starting up a lot easier and does cause a measurable improvement in fuel economy.
However: given that 10 watts of solar power cost me £80 (UK GBP) I have some reservations about whether really useful amounts of power can be generated without dramaticallly increasing the cost of the car.. and with an electric car unlike my old diesel lump, isn't there a risk that the extra weight of solar cells would cancel out the gains ?
I have been a user for about 10 years. This ends Feb 2014. The site's been ruined. I'm off. Dice, FU
Instead go with length wise connections and "People on the highway for long trips that want to save money on gasoline can connect multiple vehicles into a train."
This would reduce gas/energy consumption by at least 28% (as per Mythbusters 2007 , episode 80, drafting 2 ft behind a big rig reduced gas consumption by 28% Connecting ).
No it won't work in the cities where people get off the the highway often, but out west where people ride for miles, a little bit of comm networking and boom you can easily have people joining up into road trains, saving gas.
excitingthingstodo.blogspot.com
1. >129 mpg by design. I'll be interested in seeing whether it can actually reach that.
2. Seats three. Center seat is slightly forward, and it looks like the steering wheel is in the center. Which will make getting in and out a royal pain for the driver.
3. Nominally, it's 3.2 m long. When two of them are mated up, the combination is 4.8 m long. Where's the other 1.6 m going? Is the front of the second car going to fill up the rear of the lead car? Or does the combination look like the two cars are humping?
I'm not seeing any room in that design for crumple zones, roll bars, that sort of thing. Which makes me suspect it could never pass safety standards in the USA.
How in hell do you change the tires on this thing?
If they can get it past safety standards, and the price is reasonable, and it doesn't turn out to have the general quality of the Yugo, it might be a moderately useful vehicle for a family.
"I do not agree with what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it"
"Everyone buckled in? Ok. Activate interlock! Dynotherms connected! Infracells up! Mega thrusters are go! Let's go Antro Duo!"
My sci-fi novel, Ghost Thief, is now available from Amazon.com.
If you're going to make little cars that can be linked together to make larger cars, why stop at two? And didn't this concept used to be known as a "train"?
I've abandoned my search for truth; now I'm just looking for some useful delusions.
Splitting the car would mean having license plates and insurance for two vehicles. It would be like owning two smart cars and having one tow the other.
I had a car that could split in two. The mechanism by which it did this feat was called "rust".
I knew scientists were working on bring quantum mechanics to "big" items, but I never thought a car that can travel two paths at once would have happened in my lifetime.
The Internet has given stupid people the resources of intelligent people.
Wasn't it in the New Adventures of Speed Racer? Of course, it was first in the Fantastic 4, but even though it was called the Fantasticar, it was not really a car.
Fight Spammers!
Does a duo take less energy to run than two solos?
For the film Malcolm http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0091464/
I don't know if it's still published but when I was a kid I found an old CarToons magazine which was sort of like MAD Magazine but full of cars.
There was one story with this style vehicle in it, basically the whole world was a mesh of interconnected freeways. There were no more buildings, everyone was constantly mobile. The family home was sort of like an RV with several pod cars that would pop out when the kids wanted to go out. You'd pull up to a McDonald's, pay at the window and get you junk food all without stopping. When couple's would date they'd connect their pods and make out. Off the roads it was a bit like Logan's Run with nature being "contaminated" and deadly. So the plot is that 2 kids are making out, run their pods off the road. After get lost in the forest they run out of gas and have to walk around. They discover fruits and vegetables, live like hippies for a while and love it. Then the feds track them down and forcefully reintroduce them to society (Clockwork Orange style).
It was a nice magazine... excuse me while I go get a Big Mac.
Cwm, fjord-bank glyphs vext quiz
I believe they're known as a Ferrari...
A car that can split into two cars is clearly banned in Leviticus. Expect the tea-baggers to be up in arms.
Let's just say I hope we'll all be able to choose our own vehicles.
I hope there's at least one manufacturer bold enough to actually SELL the cars they are constantly presenting as proof-of-concept, pre-series, prototypes and all that.
There's a ton of incredibly beautiful, modern, futuristic or even plain future cars at major trade shows, but they never ever sell the damn things.
I don't want to *put* kids in the back, they can crawl into the backseat themselves. I don't want to put groceries in the *boot*, I can put them in whatever cargo compartment is aerodynamically perfect. I don't need to sit in the upright grandpa position, I love to lounge or slouch comfortably, thank you.
That said, I would prefer http://www.geekologie.com/2007/12/07/future-car-1.jpg all the time.
Because the other model frankly looks like all the others on the parking lot at the mall, bland, boring, traditional, practical, economical and above all like it was designed for or even by my grandmother.
We need Spice in design. And we need Moar.
The article does not contain a photo. So here it comes.
Any sufficiently advanced intelligence is indistinguishable from stupidity.
Similar concept. The brake pedal goes with one half, the accelerator with the other.
Have gnu, will travel.
After 30+ years of improving impact and collision safety by the US and world auto industry, how much of that is lost in these new designs?
I want my mouse back
Two Motor Cycles become http://knightrideronline.com/tkr/motor.jpg
a Combo vehicle http://knightrideronline.com/tkr/morph.jpg
And yes, it was a stupid show.
Form of...oh, just a bigger car.
We're wanted men. I have the death sentence in 12 systems!
If it split into four, the car could split off smaller cars for, "His boy Elroy," "Daughter Judy," and "Jane, his wife."
Oh, say does that Star-Spangled Banner entwine / The myrtle of Venus with Bacchus's vine?
I know I'm new here, but why the hell wouldn't there be a picture of the car splitting in half? It would be like a Ginsu knife commercial where they never slice the tomato. It would be like a documentary on the Harrier Jet where it never hovers.
Their they're doing there hair.
It looks like a computer mouse, or a shoe. Looking at the picture of the car at the Wired website, it seems that the car has a large surface area covered with glass. This means that the car will turn into a hot glasshouse during the day. Opening the windows or switching on the air-con would be inefficient/use up a lot of power. Another concern is the structural integrity of the car. A head on collision will shatter the glass windscreen/roof directly on the passengers. I assume, that should the car ever go into production, it would by necessity, look like a conventional car.
That car is coming straight out of the 70ies. It's reminiscent of a star trek story where they travel back in time to our civilisation in the 70ies (or 80ies) -- to get in contact with extinct whales or so.
During the energy crisis. It consisted of a small "Smart Car" style front end that could be docked to a rear end to form a station wagon style car.
The front, I think may have been electric and the rear had an ICE engine. The idea was that you'd run your errands and commute in the little car, then dock to the ICE rear unit for long trips.
I actually like that concept in theory, but I can imagine that many people might not like having the unused rear half hanging around taking up space (although carrying the excess space around is kind of silly too). I can also see how such a configuration might deliver less than the "best of both worlds" it promises.
Now having *two* independently usable halves might be more attractive. The problem is that each half and the combined vehicle is bound to be so unconventional I wouldn't bet on its market or technical success. The 70s concept was pretty conventional both as a small commuter car and a docked long distance travel car.
Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
If you think getting it registered and getting plates for it is going to be hard wait until you try to insure it (them?)
Nate
This would reduce gas/energy consumption by at least 28% (as per Mythbusters 2007 , episode 80, drafting 2 ft behind a big rig reduced gas consumption by 28%
How much fuel was the big rig consuming?
A solar powered ship will doubtless eventually be feasible, as will be a low speed (20-30mph) truck. But not cars.
From scarped cliff or quarried stone she cries "A thousand types are gone, I care for nothing, no not one."
In fact it has been tried out - on the local canal we have Emily and Bronte, a small tug and a longer liveaboard boat that can go around separately or as a unit. The owner has his engineering workshop in the tug, so he can act as a mobile marine mechanic and move the whole rig around when he wants a change of scene.
picture included
From scarped cliff or quarried stone she cries "A thousand types are gone, I care for nothing, no not one."
FTFA: The current prototype looks interesting, but I can't believe its chances of ever making it to past the prototype stage are much above slim.
Currently hooked on AMP
Good thing it wasn't the Russians who invented this - there would be 6 of them that fit inside each other.
"The ferrets, they're every where I tell you!"
Stealing half a car sounds more like Small Theft Auto.
If I can split my car everyday, I will have infinite cars.
*Yawn* this was already done in Australia in 1986.
Can't the Hungarians come up with anything original?
Why do today what you can put off until tomorrow?
I suspect a really substantial link to two little baby cars is going to weigh too much, and take too much fiddling around, for your average driver to manage.
otherwise, every little ripple in the road, you've got two cars.
who designed this, again, Hal Roach Movie Studios?
if this is supposed to be a new economy, how come they still want my old fashioned money?
splits into a motorcycle and a bicycle, too. Each with quick disconnect wheels!
Link.
09F91102 no, 455FE104 nope, F190A1E8 uh-uh, 7A5F8A09 that's not it, C87294CE no. Ah! 452F6E403CDF10714E41DFAA257D313F.
Why must all car design concepts look like those banana-shaped sneakers worn only by East European bouncers?
As a hungarian I believe there will be nothing from this. It is just another firm which goes after free taxpayer money from the government rinding on the "green energy" bandwagon.
Government cannot make man richer, but it can make him poorer. - Ludwig von Mises
http://www.solo-duo.hu/main.php?category=104
Just some pretty pictures there
This shows how the car splits:
http://www.solo-duo.hu/data/picture_news/62/0062/pic87.jpg
A back-to-back "link-up" with the rear end of the cars put separately. Will it have 6 wheels when connected? Or just four wheels, with the other (double) two wheels raised or totally removed?
And the "back" car has the seats backside-facing (unless the seats can rotate).
The three seats are side-by-side (the front seat a little advanced). Not a very friendly conversation place, as the passengers will talk behind the head of the driver.
Interesting idea, it's just that I think it has a bad implementation.
Good luck staying awake in long trips in a "lounge" car seat...
But I too would like something like the blue future car... maybe this?
http://digitheory.files.wordpress.com/2009/02/dymaxioncar1.jpg
What if someone hits the car while it's one piece and it splits into 2 peices? Is that considered 2 accidents? Do you have to have insurance on 2 different cars? Is it considered towing if 2 are connected?
...but anyway, how it would be in Hungarian for "My cars joining with delight!"?
Absence of proof != proof of absence.