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Formula One design vet creating eco-smart city car

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Another entry that is along the lines of "Smart" car:

Formula One design vet creating eco-smart city car | Green Tech - CNET News.com

The styles from Europe this year are decidedly green and small.
Designer Gordon Murray, best known for his work on Formula One racing cars, detailed on Monday a new city car design called the T.25 that is aimed at reducing congestion and lowering pollution.

The planned T.25 in green compared with (going left to right) a VW Golf, a Fiat 500, a Smart Car, and a Mini Cooper.




Compared even with existing compact cars, the T.25 will be small: it can be parked headlong against the curb, allowing three cars to fit in one parking space.
Gordon Murray Design is about halfway through its two-year planning process and plans to have a prototype on the road early next year.
To lower the car's carbon footprint, the company has rethought the cradle-to-grave lifecycle of the car. For example, many of the parts, including the capacity and body, can be recycled and the manufacturing process is being set up with a minimal number of parts to reduce energy use during fabrication.
The first versions of the car will run on either gas or diesel and get about 60 miles per gallon, the company told Greentech Media.

No more driving around the block to wait for a space. Three T.25's fit in the space for one car.


The company intends to work with outside manufacturers to lower the cost and sell the car to city dwellers in Asia and Europe for between $10,000 and $11,000, it told Greentech Media.
Overall, the car should have low or zero emissions, the company says.
Compact cars are already more popular in Europe and Asia than in the U.S. Automakers have helped create demand for SUVs and trucks as passenger cars. But with rising fuel prices and growing environmental awareness, city cars appear to be staging a comeback.
The Smart Car is already cruising European and American streets. And Think Global from Norway intends to market its all-electric city car, called the Think City, in Europe and the United States next year.
I personally have abandoned any idea of using fossil fuel car. I declared my 4x4 Dodge van non-operational for the next year (starting July 1), cancelled my car insurance. I bought a trailer for my road-bike, & am going car-less. Public transportation (bus or electric train to downtown Los Angeles) allows me to bring a bike on board. I just recently tried this hybrid mode of transportation, & was surprised at the beauty of this solution.

Heck, I don't even need a car PERIOD (gas guzzler, or electric for that matter)!! I haven't used my van for city travel in OVER A YEAR, I only used my 4x4 van for offroad jaunts to Baja offroad races or Nevada/Arizona offroad races.

In a pinch, I can always rent a car.
 
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The little old ladies will be seeing this.
 

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Smaller than a Mini but seats four and goes like a bomb: Is the T25 the car of the future? | Mail Online

via Gordon Murray talks about his 80 mpg T25 - AutoblogGreen

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On the fringes, madmen in sheds cook up their recipes to keep us on the move: wooden cars, cars which supposedly run on fresh air, water or chip fat. You can buy a Lotus which runs on mobile phone batteries - 6,000 of them. (Trouble is, it costs more than a Porsche.)

err...?

So when Gordon Murray says we need to scrap everything we know about cars - ordinary cars, not 240mph megamachines - and start again, the industry sits up and takes notice.

'Everything needs to change,' he says. 'How the car is designed, how it is made, what it is made from, how much space it takes up on the road, how much fuel it uses.'
 
Murray's city car takes shape | Auto Express News | News | Auto Express

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Innovative British auto designer Gordon Murray says vacuum cleaner experts could build his eagerly anticipated T25. The model is due for launch in 2012, with an annual target of 100,000 sales. And the man behind the legendary McLaren F1 has revealed for the first time who might be selling it.

“It may be large industrial concerns that haven’t yet been associated with cars – like Sony, Virgin or Dyson,” said Murray. He claimed these firms could be the perfect partners for his project, as they are successful, have a strong brand image and epitomise quality. “It would be companies wanting to diversify, rather than needing to, and ones that don’t want the huge capital investment required.”
 
I wouldn't normally associate Dyson with powerhouses like Sony or Virgin.

Remember this?:

http://www.teslamotorsclub.com/technical/1298-dyson-drivetrain.html
Yes. Reinvigorating old jokes about a car that really sucks. Still, skeptics should be told that Mr. Dyson is, by trade, an inventor who's done work for the British military as well. The whole home appliance thing (they make washing machines, too) came from his frustration with vacuuming. To save people from rehashing the old thread, the advances they've made in electric motors for the "ball vacuum" can easily be scaled up to EV capability.

Maybe some of our friends from the left side of the pond can attest to Dyson's status over there.