Japan Car exhibition at London Science Museum

[dpeilow]

Japan Car: designing the drive of your life?

Other vehicles explore possible futures in other ways. Four cars here are either hybrid vehicles, powered by a mix of fossil fuels and electricity, pure electric cars (Mitsubishi i-MiEV), or a hydrogen fuel cell (Honda FCX Clarity), whose only byproduct is water. From the outside, however, all look disappointingly normal.

Japan Car, Science Museum, London SW7, Nov 29-Apr 19, 2009. Admission £8

Japan Car: Designs for a Crowded Globe - a set on Flickr

[doug]

These look pretty abnormal to me:

[vfx]

Has a Tesla hit Japan yet?

[dpeilow]

The top one (Nissan) was on some car shows earlier in the summer. The bottom one (Toyota) was on last week's Top Gear here and was at the Goodwood Festival of Speed. In fact the TV show about Goodwood focussed on that and some wacky sky car contraption and skipped over the Tesla and Opel eFlex that were in the same pavillion. It's almost a conspiracy that those totally impractical design studies get presented to the masses as some vision of the future when the real useful stuff is almost suppressed.

[vfx]

It's almost a conspiracy that those totally impractical design studies get presented to the masses as some vision of the future when the real useful stuff is almost suppressed.

I just assume have the real (avalible) cars kept away from the goofy future cars. No guilt by assotiation.

[dpeilow]

Well, that is one way to look at it, but there were some useful and interesting concepts at that show that didn't make it onto the TV. There seems to be a problem with some parts of the media in this country, but what is causing that (the media or the manufacturers) isn't totally clear to me.

[TEG]

It's like when Leno and Seinfeld go to car shows and are mobbed by people taking their pictures. They are probably like "come on, we are all here for the cars... look at the cars not us!"

I recently read some article about Paul Newman's racing career... He basically had to curtail a lot of his driving because he would cause such a scene whenever he came out of his trailer to head to the car. In the early days most people didn't know it was him so he was just another one of the drivers.

If you put out some outrageous, wacky concept cars at an event with otherwise serious cars it isn't unexpected that the press will focus on the ones that get a stronger reaction.

[vfx]

Congrats (I think) TEG on 2400 posts (not sure why that's milestone) (but whatever)

My dad used to deal with the racer Newman back in the day. He would talk all day with you about cars and racing but if someone brought up the movies he would walk away.

As for the wacky cars, so far only Tesla has learned (and proven) that the packaging is only half the equation to getting attention.

[doug]

Has a Tesla hit Japan yet?

Not yet. They'll need to make RHD available before they enter the Japanese market. This is something they should be working on anyhow for broader acceptance in the UK. Siry told me they'd probably need to change HVAC suppliers first. For some reason that supplier's system was only compatible with LHD. There are probably other homologization issues with the Asian market as well.

[vfx]

With over a dozen manufactures working on EVs I see great leaps in all sorts of Electric tech. ABG says the E-Mini HVAC is a hog. Imagine when Saab or Toyota or whomever makes a breakthrough in one of these areas. All cars will benifit!

Exciting times.