It's Friday: Japan tries to one-up China in weird-green-car sweepstakes with Bamgoo
It's become apparent that the folks who design green cars truly realize that their efforts should stand apart from the crowd. While some trod the tried and true path of bringing sexy back, others seem to make huge efforts to scare sexy away. Vehicles in this later camp seem to come, more often than not, from China, though there are certainly other countries who seem to think that green means weird. (We're looking at you, France) The reigning champion of car bizarre is no doubt the Tang Hua "Detroit Fish" (above right) which first left us gasping for air at, surprise, the Detroit Auto Show. This car does Dr. Seuss even better than the GEM Peapod and is amphibious to boot.
Though the green cars born in Japan tend to be more pragmatic or "cute", they have been known to show us some peculiar-looking cars as well. Their latest entry into this category is the "Bamgoo" (above left). No, that's not a typo. This electric car boasts a 30-mile range and weighs only 132 lbs thanks to its being constructed with, you guessed it, bamboo. The single passenger oddity was recently unveiled in Kyoto and was built at that city's university with locally-grown materials. We suspect it is somewhat greener than its Chinese competitor, but is it weirder? Hit the comments to let us know.
[Source: Japan Probe]
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
Bill 6:03PM (11/07/2008)
Put it out of its misery now and drive it into the cellulosic ethanol algae pond...
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Andrew 7:15PM (11/07/2008)
The Bamgoo looks like the basis for the next Cheech & Chong movie. The Detroit Fish just looks like an EV fruit version of the Oscar Meyermobile.
Dead heat in weirdness, if you ask me.
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GenWaylaid 2:52AM (11/09/2008)
The most ecological car ever: made from recycled panda poop!
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Eric Veltman 6:27AM (11/09/2008)
It doesn't look tough, cool or pretty yet, but I do like the idea of using Bamboo for the construction of (ultra-light) cars. I can imagine a lot less energy would be required for building the car. And I'm sure the technique can be refined a lot so you can build tough, cool, pretty, sleek, ego-extender, whatever cars with it.
I heard Bamboo is a pretty strong material, there's a project (don't have a link handy right now) to teach Africans to build (transport) bicycles with frames from Bamboo (which they can grow locally).
Not sure a bamboo car would ever be a sturdy as today's cars, but perhaps if all the car weights (and perhaps speeds, for eco-friendliness) gradually go down, that becomes a non-issue. In a transitional period of moving to lower speeds and lower weights, you could even allow such 'ultra light' cars on (somewhat upgraded) cycle paths, as long as they don't go faster than 40kph. Here in the Netherlands, that would be do-able, as we have a prettty complete cycle path network.
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D 2:36PM (11/09/2008)
Bamboo is otherwise known as cell grown carbon / nitrogen nanotubing
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