Two Bubble Cars

Cars have really changed very littel over the past 80 years. The cars of today are smaller and lighter but essentially the exact same technology as the boxes that the original Henry Ford rolled off the assembly lines.

As energy costs continue to mount, people look to innovators for solutions, now as 80 years ago. People like Buckminster Fuller led the way off the beaten path of automobiles, with his ingenious Dymaxion bubble-van. Damn Interesting has an article from 2005 on this interesting car:



"Imagine a car that seats eleven passengers, turns on a dime, has excellent fuel efficiency, and cruises happily at 120 miles per hour. A man named Buckminster "Bucky" Fuller imagined and designed such a car, and in 1933, several fully capable prototypes were built for Chrysler." - DamnInteresting

Similarly, we see innovators attempting to accomplish equally fantastic feats with more modern technology. The fully electric Courreges Zooop is said to go over 450 KM per charge of it's batteries, meaning well over 300 miles to us Americans. Considering that 300 Mi on a tank of gas is pretty much standard for all cars in the US, I think that this Zooop unmasks another myth about electrically powered transport, that it is short-range only. Hopefully these Electrical Vehicles don't do the way of the Dymaxion and never see the pavement. Gizmo Watch has a short profile of the car on their site.



"André and Coqueline Courrèges have embellished their electric vehicle line with the latest ‘Zooop’ that takes you 450 km per charge. The three-seater 690 kg car runs on powerful Lithium Polymer batteries (70 A/hour 370 V) that don’t let you down by generating 150 kW of power and still maintaining their cool, and charging and recharging fast." - GizmoWatch

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