Automotive Innovation at the San Diego International Auto Show

[nadinbrzezinski]

Dec 31, 2015 (San Diego) The San Diego International Autno Show is not just a place where you can find the latest production vehicles, but also concept vehicles. This year you can go see a second place in the 2010 XPrize competition. This little vehicle will surprise you. The innovations in it are impressive. The goal of producing a vehicle that uses less energy during production, and less energy overall, and has recycled materials points to the way to real innovation.

It is out of the XPrize that a term we are all starting to get used to emerge: Equivalent Miles per Gallon, EMPG for short. This means what would take to move something 100 miles on regular fuel.

These were the guidelines set by Progressive Insurance and the XPrize Foundation. They also used funds in a public-partnership with the United States Department of Energy.

http://reportingsandiego.com/2015/12/31/automotive-innovation-at-the-san-diego-international-auto-show/

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I am willing to bet I could call this my exclusive because large media will not talk to people trying to disrupt the current model of vehicle production.

But we decided to make this a stand alone story... because quite frankly this is the kind of technology that will see us having far more efficient and green vehicles. Oh and how cool is that? We got to meet somebody who participated in that contest. Some of the others, well actually my local university Engineering team, but they never got that close to the top.

[hunter]

1. I'd love to see a redesign of cities to favor small vehicles.

35 mph or less is plenty fine for urban travel, and as I recall my commuting days in Los Angeles, even the freeways were slower than that. (I remember twenty mile commutes sometimes taking more than an hour... and in the 'eighties the air wasn't as clean.)

On the other hand, three wheel vehicles like this are an artifact of laws ceding "ownership" of the road to one ton plus high power four wheeled vehicles.

Everyone who doesn't own a conventional automobile is punished to place themselves in great danger; pedestrians, bicyclists, mopeds, motorcycles, and little three wheelers like this.

Four wheel vehicles, similar in size to the vehicle you highlight, are discouraged by regulations favoring larger vehicles, not by any design considerations.

If I was emperor (hah, hah) I'd limit all urban personal vehicles to ten kilowatt motors or less, and top speeds to less than 50 kph.

Park your big car, if you have one, outside the city.

[nadinbrzezinski]

2. What we found interesting is...

I am not kidding, we talked to him, went to the jeep ride (those you schedule, serious), and came back. NOT ONE other reporter.

This is to me, an amazing little concept vehicle, that will likely fly in places where big, beefy, and all that is not that much of a deal.

[Major Nikon]

3. Some towns have invested in golf cart trails

I visited Peachtree City, GA and was pretty impressed by their network of golf cart paths. The paths ran under the roadways where necessary so you never had to cross any street. People in the town leave their cars at home for local trips and instead use the golf carts and everyone seemed to be using them.

[nadinbrzezinski]

4. If properly engineered those could also serve as bike paths

Thanks...

Now you gave me work

[hunter]

5. Modern "golf cart" technology could be awesome in cities designed for it...

... including self-driving vehicles.

One might imagine blind or other non-drivers getting around just as well as anyone else and still more rapidly than our existing "big automobile" culture.