Tom Cruise first to receive $72,500 carbon-fibre superbike
Tom Cruise is on the top of list to get Ducati's new $72,500 superbike, the Desmosedici RR, which was released this week. The bike uses lightweight but strong titanium, magnesium and tres green carbon fiber. Specifically, the rear seat support is made from high-temperature resin type carbon fibre, only found in racing bikes. The tail also includes a ceramic carbon fibre composite cover, the same technology used in F1 cars.
Tom has received some criticism in the press recently because of a video circulating the internet. We hope being the first to own one of these limited-production (only 1,500 will be made), 200 MPH bikes will cheer Tom up a little. Enjoy the video below the fold of Tom on a bike and lots of gun play in the movie Mission Impossible 2 directed by John Woo.
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
The Joker 9:05AM (1/31/2008)
Is it powered by thetans?
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rgseidl 9:10AM (1/31/2008)
Carbon fibers may be strong and lightweight but it's expensive primarily because their manufacture is very energy-intensive. Also, it's next to impossible to recover sufficiently long fiber fragments during recycling, so carbon fiber parts are usually just incinerated along with most of the other plastics to produce electricity.
Tres green? I'd need to see a cradle-to-grave comparison of the CO2 footprints of the alternatives before I'd go that far. Improved fuel economy during operation isn't the whole story.
Besides, anyone calling a supercar or superbike "green" obviously has a very different definition of that term than I do.
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YouDonkey 9:13AM (1/31/2008)
blah blah blah blah blah blah. After watching 1 minute of that Tom Cruise interview I am now that much more dumber.
Scientists should do a study on the human brain when listening to Tom Cruise speak. I swear I lost brain cells!!
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GoodCheer 9:22AM (1/31/2008)
I'm with rgseidl.
This is green transportation news how?
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Lascelles Linton 11:28AM (1/31/2008)
Rgseidl and GoodCheer, Light weight racing tech coming into products you can buy, I think is important to note. As rgseidl says, it's expensive. Now, when someone says, why don't you use more carbon fibre in a production vehicle, I can say, they do! Tom's got one and it cost $72,500. Bikes are inherently green vehicles because they are so light too. Woo is also very good as directing action :D
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James 1:39PM (1/31/2008)
Is this Entertainment Tonight or a green auto blog? Who cares that Tom Cruise is spending the equivalent of two to three normal people's yearly incomes on a toy? Maybe this post was supposed to make it to regular-flavored autoblog instead.
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meme 4:35PM (1/31/2008)
Carbon fiber isn't expensive because of energy costs. Carbon fiber fabric is only $8-$10 a pound -- this for a material that only makes up a fraction of carbon fiber composites (the rest is cheap plastic), and which is much lighter than the steel it replaces.
The real cost is in manufacturing. It can't be pour-cast, stamped, welded, or anything like that. The labor needed, depending on the amount of automation (which is complex and expensive in and of itself), can be significant, and the labor pool is small and expensive.
That said, using carbon fiber isn't inherently a ridiculously pricey endeavor. Look at the Aptera ($27k, and a lot more carbon fiber than this), or, even better, the Boeing Dreamliner.
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Karl-Uwe Strunzen 1:23AM (2/01/2008)
I agree about the tres green carbon fiber bit.
Firstly because when comparing the manufacturing cycle to the product lifetime (which I presume is measured in years), it would be silly to suggest this isn't green. Secondly, carbon fibre isn't that energetically bad anyway. As Meme points out, the high cost is due to (human) labor intensive processes.
I'd very much welcome more automotive applications with carbon fibers. Toray in Japan are experimenting now, as are the ATR group in Italy. ATR not only make Ducati and MotoGP motorbike parts in carbon fibre, but parts of F1 cars, the Alfa 8C, Audi GT R8, Bugattis and Lamborghinis, Agusta helicopters, and bits of civilian and military airplanes:
http://www.atrgroup.it/eng/clienti.htm
The problem I think is getting the production rates higher (though at ATR they currently aren't bad at all apparently).
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Jersey Danny 5:59PM (2/10/2008)
Let's hope this idiot finds a nice tree to kiss with this bike. He can't keep a BigWheel on the road; how's he gonna ride a bike that's in F-1 territory???
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Sam 1:24PM (2/11/2008)
Get a life Tom....how many of us would own a $72,000.00 bike, or would be stupid enough to pay that kinda of money for one.You know how many people that kinda of money would feed. But i guess Tom would'nt think that way.
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