Foam car to enter Auto X-Prize competition
According to Lon Ballard, designer of the Spira, a three-wheeled floating car made from foam (yes, foam), "The Spira team hopes foam will revolutionize autos and motorcycles like the Crocs and flip-flops have revolutionized shoes and sandals." Whether or not that's a good thing may depend not only on your personal opinion of the polarizing footwear, but also on how well the vehicle is able to live up to its maker's lofty claims.
Ballard believes that millions of his foam cars traveling our nations highways would make for a safer motoring experience for all. If everyone were driving one of the 302-pound vehicles, he may be right. Otherwise, we're not so sure. Regardless, the 100cc engine (we presume it's from a scooter of some sort) reportedly delivers 100 miles per gallon and can push the Spira to a top speed of 70 miles per hour.
The fledgling automaker plans to enter the Spira in the Automotive X-Prize and, shortly thereafter, begin small-scale production at a plant in Rayong, Thailand. Later, Ballard plans to offer franchise opportunities so the car could be offered all around the world. See two short videos of the Spira in action after the break.
[Source: Wired]
Videos:
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
guyledouche 4:42PM (5/14/2009)
Cheesy, half-assed, waste of time. What else can be said? Who would want to drive in an embellished egg crate anyway?. I could be wrong, but did anybody notice that its only ONE wheel drive too? That's why he kept doing donuts tot he left.
He'll probably try to sell them for $8k to top it off.
Its like a bad sequel to the Commutacar, minus any decent engineering, and plus a horribly polluting scooter motor instead of electric power.
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Gary 4:48PM (5/14/2009)
Foam? Yeah... that's going to be nothing more than a speed bump for the giant SUVs.
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Chris 4:52PM (5/14/2009)
Doubles as a foam casket.
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Tohe 5:34PM (5/14/2009)
I see a beer cooler!
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Chris M 6:44PM (5/14/2009)
Why do they think spinning donuts on a slick surface would impress anyone? I don't buy cars to go skidding aound in.
I must admit it would make a kind of a neat fishing boat if they added a propeller. Goofy looking, but considering what some fishermen wear and drive, they aren't concerned about looks.
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ale 9:12PM (5/14/2009)
a fun thing for x-prize, but cant wait for the suburban smash videos... intense.. or why not a fishing boat collision...
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DasBoese 3:59AM (5/15/2009)
Another case of "good idea, bad execution".
The idea of using foam actually opens up interesting possibilities for safety and lightweight construction... of course that'll hardly be the case with cheap household PU foam, which it looks like this was made of.
As it is, this thing is a glorified tuk-tuk, only without the practical value.
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Dan Frederiksen 4:54AM (5/15/2009)
hehe somewhat scathing reviews in the comments :)
fun to build stuff for yourself but it's probably true it lacks a bit of commercial appeal.
the irony about the x prize is that my concept: http://zev.dk/F5.jpg is easily better than all in the tandem class but they put up financial barriers so I couldn't sign up. could probably beat even the Aptera too if they hadn't altered the rules to protect the Aptera from competition, which is just blatant favoritism. 3.3 million dollars I could have won. I'm not bitter :)
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DasBoese 1:08PM (5/15/2009)
You can solve a lot of problems by throwing money at them, but that's hardly the point of this competition.
I guess they learned that from the Space X-Prize, where Scaled Composites simply outspent the competition.
Dan Frederiksen 4:39PM (5/15/2009)
actually they didn't learn anything. the entry fee was 10000$ then you had to pay for the build and then the transport and stay to the competition. they shut out the intelligent idea and favored money. as a result the best by far is not in the competition
Snoopy 5:57PM (5/15/2009)
The idea of the foam car smashing is certainly interesting, but the concept of using foam to lighten up cars isn't too bad.
I'm less concerned about the possibility of the car getting smashed than I am about it being stolen by someone who decides to slice into it.
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