A radical redesign of cars to cheap, safe, lightweight electrical cars is beyond the imagination or believability of some people.
“We cannot have lightweight electrical cars, they are not safe because we have SUVs and trucks”.
– Air bags work to protect in a collision. Lightweight cars bounce from collision with heavier vehicles.
– Formula One race cars weigh 440kg but drivers can survive collision at 200mph.
Air bags inflate and are tough enough to survive collisions.
So inflatable electric cars are not an unreasonable development goal. The company (XP Vehicles) claims to be trying to make the inflatable electric car.
An alternative is converting the $2500 cars like the Tata Nano to be plug in hybrids or all electric and making them lighter.
Tata has stated that electric and hybrid cars are on their development path. They will be making over a million/year Tata Nano’s within a few years.
Tata promises an electric car within 12 months (by Aug 2009)
Five electric car models by Tata
Toyota and other companies are working on more lightweight materials for cars. Vehicles that weighed 600 kg instead of 1000kg would have 30% better fuel economy.
Brian Wang is a Futurist Thought Leader and a popular Science blogger with 1 million readers per month. His blog Nextbigfuture.com is ranked #1 Science News Blog. It covers many disruptive technology and trends including Space, Robotics, Artificial Intelligence, Medicine, Anti-aging Biotechnology, and Nanotechnology.
Known for identifying cutting edge technologies, he is currently a Co-Founder of a startup and fundraiser for high potential early-stage companies. He is the Head of Research for Allocations for deep technology investments and an Angel Investor at Space Angels.
A frequent speaker at corporations, he has been a TEDx speaker, a Singularity University speaker and guest at numerous interviews for radio and podcasts. He is open to public speaking and advising engagements.