Rinspeed, a Swiss corporation founded by Frank M. Rinderknecht in 1977, has long been known to the motoring world as a center of creative ideas. In March, 2013, Rinspeed will introduce its latest concept, the microMAX. What is it? Well, it’s a personal transportation device – sort of like a bus, somewhat like a taxi and similar to a personal subway car. In other words, it’s a box on wheels from people who think outside the box. And it may be how we move around urban environments in the future. Cute, isn’t it?
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Rinspeed microMAX
Most of us think of public transportation as crowded, dirty and smelly. And inconvenient. Waiting in the rain for a bus is not fun. But what if a fleet of vehicles like the microMAX roamed your city? What if you could summon one using your smart phone? What if it arrived when you needed it and took you exactly where you wanted to go? And what if you didn’t have to share it with a couple hundred of your closest friends? That would be pretty sweet, wouldn’t it?
The microMAX is a people mover. It provides room for three adults plus children and strollers. It has a refrigerator and a coffee maker. An electric motor and battery pack make it environmentally friendly. But it has one thing we really don’t need – a driver. The next revolution in transportation will be “smart” cars that find there way around electronically without human intervention. Like an elevator on wheels.
The microMAX isn’t intended to take you over the river and through the woods to your grandmother’s house. It’s just supposed to get you into the city from the airport or from home to work, so it only needs to be aware of a fairly small geographical area. California has recently adopted legislation that permits driverless cars on some roads and other states are not far behind.
Perhaps the folks at Rinspeed need to think a little further outside the box. Make the microMAX driverless and we might actually have a transportation revolution on our hands!
The whole hybrid/mpg debate has led to some wild claims and near hysteria among the buying public. But in general, a hybrid owner has to keep a car for 6 years or more before fuel savings equal the extra money a hybrid costs to purchase. How many people drive the same car for 6 years in modern day America? Ford offers plug-in hybrid versions of the C Max and the Fusion that cost almost $40,000. Which means you have to drive for more than a decade before you start saving any money. Is anyone paying attention out there?
Source: TreeHugger.com
Gafni makes his bike out of cardboard. First, he folds the cardboard in precisely the right way and then he treats his creation with resins to dramatically increase its strength. He says the finished product is stronger than steel. The inventor claims his creation is waterproof, fire proof and environmentally friendly.
his bicycle cost less than $20. And that means that transportation options have dramatically increased for poor and developing countries where present day bicycles are an unobtainable luxury. For most of us in the US and the industrialized nations, having access to a bicycle may seem like a small thing. But if your present situation limits you to walking, a bike means freedom.
When I was young, the typical American car was about the size of a Buick Roadmaster. On other words, it was HUGE! There was room in the trunk to sneak 4 friends into a drive-in movie. A normal person could stretch out full length on the back seat without taking off his Bass Weejuns. The cars weighed 4,000 pounds or more. Back then, that avoirdupois was referred to as “road hugging weight.” This particular car featured four portholes in the front fenders and a Straight 8 engine under the hood. Gas mileage? Forget about it. Gas cost less than 25 cents a gallon. Who cared about gas mileage?
term of acceleration and pulling power. Previously, the only 3 cylinder motors Americans might have heard of were the two stroke engines found in early Saabs – the ones that had a “ringy ding ding” exhaust note and trailed a faint plume of oil smoke behind – and the engine in the cheapest Geo Metro. The engine block for the new Ford 3 cylinder is so small it can fit into a suitcase!
Yesterday (November 25), Sebastien Vettel, driving for Red Bull, finished just high enough in the Brazil Grand Prix to win the 2012 World Driving Championship. That in itself is a remarkable achievement, as Vettel is a mere 25 years of age. What IS extraordinary, though, is that this is his third consecutive WDC. Only two other drivers in the history of the sport have accomplished that, and both are giants in the history of motor racing – Juan Manuel Fangio and Michael Schumacher. Here’s the interesting part. Schumacher did it when he was 35, fully ten years older than Vettel is now.
I like to blog about the world of automobiles and the subtle way their role in society is changing. But I am not a “one trick pony”. I think about other things, too. When that happens, I might blog about what’s happening in politics or technology or…..well, you just never know what my brain might come up with. I sure don’t !
always good to be leading, with 25 points available to the winner, Vettel is no shoe-in for the title.
his Red Bull race car while leading a race. All of which means any one of these three drivers could have notched a WDC title, but for racing luck that sometimes turned against them.
Rhode Trips 