ecomobile two in america and one comming

[seafox]

their was a story in the local sunday paper about the ecomobile it isan enclosed two wheel moter cycle with retractable stablizers. its 1200 cc bmw flat 4 engine gets 50 mpg and top speed is 185 mph room for two cost 80,000 their is one distributer in the US first two ( one owned by the dealer) are in the mid alantic and another is being imported for a denver area business man

I think it was mercadies benz that produced an exparimental three wheeler that leans into turn called the life jet
what do you think about personal transportaion vehicles

what do you think is the practical top milage for a road vehicle is/should be
jeffery

[Katherine]

Seafox, you got a picture? Sounds like the one I saw at a show awhile back.

[P.I. Stazzer-Newt]

First review I read on these was over ten years ago.
http://www.peraves.ch/standarde.htm

[Dan McCosh]

The concept is nearly as old as the auto industry. High-mileage commuter cars have never proved successful for a relatively simple reason. Much commuting is done in an older car, while the new purchase tends to be oriented towards the needs of a family. The cheapest 2-seater would still be about $12,000 in the US. The Smart cars are actually slightly more expensive than the cheapest Honda Civic. The net effect is that buying a new car that is small and mainly aimed at one or two people commuting never gained much of a market share. As for a practical mileage--best example today are the mid-size VW diesels, say the Jetta, which gets about 40 mpg. It's still a five-passenger car, reasonably roomy, as well as very fuel efficient. For a lot of reasons, that's probably about as good as fuel effiiciency will get for mainsteam cars.

[ 02-22-2005, 01:51 PM: Message edited by: Dan McCosh ]

[Lurch]

Originally posted by Dan McCosh:
The concept is nearly as old as the auto industry. High-mileage commuter cars have never proved successful ....The net effect is that buying a new car that is small and mainly aimed at one or two people commuting never gained much of a market share. Witness this (http://www.bmwworld.com/models/vintage/isetta.htm) from 50 years ago. Obviously crash survivability was not high on the list of Must Haves. smile.gif

[Dan McCosh]

I should have qualified this a bit. At the end od WWII, lots of tiny cars emerged that had low cost as their primary goal--the Isetta, the Fiat Topolino, the Messerschmidt, etc. They slowly went away as the economy gained in strength. There is a similar phenomenon in Japan, where cars with an engine of less than 750 cc get special privilages, which results in these taking about a fifth of the Japanese home market. I think there may be some potential in the US for such a toy car--if it stays in the price range of a snowmobile. As for safety, they still are better than a motorcycle.

[Alan D. Hyde]

Courtesy of www.forbes.com (http://www.forbes.com) :

Backseat Driver
Not So Smart
Jerry Flint , 02.14.05, 12:00 AM ET

The concept of the tiny Smart car made no sense from Day One. Even leaders of the automobile industry at times forget what a car is about.

Every auto company makes mistakes. Usually it's poor execution--weak design, sloppy handling, zipless engines or misunderstanding a market. But sometimes the bosses just forget what an automobile is supposed to be. They get carried away with an idea and spend hundreds of millions, or even billions, of dollars to build a vehicle that makes no sense.

Examples: General Motors' electric car in 1997, a two-seater with a range of 40 to 80 miles. In 2002 there was the Ford Blackwood, a kind of sport utility pickup that couldn't pick up anything and lacked four-wheel drive. Every automaker--yes, even Toyota, Honda, BMW, Porsche, all of them--have built cars they would rather forget.

It pays to remember that a car is valuable because it is a versatile tool. It carries lots of people and stuff for huge distances in all kinds of conditions. No matter how breathtaking or exciting, when it can't do these things, it doesn't sell. The Smart car, made by DaimlerChrysler in Europe, is the latest example of a failure that came from car executives who just forgot what a car is supposed to be.

The New York Times and the Wall Street Journal recently ran stories on the Smart disaster, but, strangely, neither asked why it happened. And there's a lesson for the industry in that why.

Smart was conceived by the Swatch watch people of Switzerland. Volkswagen rejected the project. But the Daimler board--the makers of Mercedes, meaning they knew little about small cars--jumped at a partnership. Before long Swatch, which knew nothing about the auto business, was sent back to cheap watches.

The idea was a tiny car, only 98 inches long, easy to park in Europe's crowded cities, with high fuel economy and incredibly cute, like the watch. Indeed, the concept included changeable body panels so an owner could change the car's colors to match an outfit.

Journalists and elitists loved the idea. But Smart made no sense. First, people really don't buy a car to park it. They buy it to get from here to there and to carry people and stuff. Parking may be a problem, but it isn't a reason for existence. Then, too, the Smart, 4 feet shorter than the new Mini, was a two-seater. A couple couldn't take along a friend or the baby. The engine was fuel-stingy, but the car was slow. Supposedly it could go 80 miles an hour. I drove one with a diesel engine on a racetrack. I was standing on the pedal to get it up to 60 and scared to death of the Lotus coming up behind me. This was not a car to drive any distance. Frankly, I would not drive it in American traffic. And who in her right mind would take apart the car body to match a dress?

Daimler built a new plant for Smart in Hambach, France with a campus of suppliers nearby. The company needed to sell about 200,000 a year to break even, when the most sales for any two-seater were half that.

The concept made no sense from Day One and, by the way, I was there on Day One when the first car rolled out of the plant six years ago. European sales reached just half of capacity. Over its first four years the car lost $3 billion, and it's still losing big money. Daimler even had to pay suppliers hundreds of millions of dollars because the volume didn't meet expectations. What's more, for the price of the Smart, a European could buy a much more competent car, like the VW Polo, which carries four passengers and can go anywhere, not just around town. The Mercedes people didn't seem to know that you take size out much easier than cost.

Why not lengthen Smart 2 feet and squeeze in a back seat? Alas, the original couldn't be stretched. The designers would have had to come up with an all-new chassis.

Why not just quit? First, executives hate to admit mistakes. Second, the plant was built in France, a public symbol of German-French cooperation. Shutting the plant and firing all those Frenchies would be politically embarrassing for Germany.

Mercedes is now promoting a second, larger Smart sedan (called the ForFour) and plans to ship a third model, a small sport utility (called the ForMore) to the U.S. from Brazil someday. It would be the size of a Honda CR-V. But the decline of the dollar might crimp these plans and, anyway, Mercedes people are finally getting frightened by those losses, so it's all up in the air.

The point is that the Daimler leaders forgot that a car is a tool and worth lots of money because it will do lots of things. Easy parking and a cute design just aren't enough.

It's a lesson to remember today as revolution creeps into the industry: hybrid cars and fuel cell cars. No matter how exciting the idea, they still must do what cars are supposed to do to be accepted. Otherwise they, too, will fail.

Jerry Flint, a former Forbes Senior Editor, has covered the automobile industry since 1958. Visit his homepage at www.forbes.com/flint. (http://www.forbes.com/flint.)

***

The bold face in the last paragraph is mine...

Alan

[ 02-22-2005, 03:06 PM: Message edited by: Alan D. Hyde ]

[Dan McCosh]

There already is a four-place Smart car on the market. The car sells more than 100,000 a year, which indicates that lots of people do like the idea, regardless of whether the volume is sufficient to be profitable for an independent franchise. Jerry, by the way, used to drive a 2-seat Miata.

[John Meachen]

I can rebut at least one of the points that is made in Alan's C&P.The Smart is not bad at speeds of around 80 as I have been in one at that speed.The whole tone of the article is American orientated and perhaps the author needs to give a bit of thought to other cultures.Similarly Dan's point about the Japanese K-cars makes a small mistake.Its not that they are given any kind of help in the marketplace rather that they are penalised less than larger cars.For a recent economical commuter car,you would have to go a long way to beat a Volkswagen Lupo with a diesel engine.Seventy miles on a gallon of fuel and four seats,even if the rear seat passengers needed to be pretty small.The sad thing is that not all these cars are appropriate everywhere or even legal for sale in some countries.

[P.I. Stazzer-Newt]

Why is it that everyone from McCosh south thinks that an ecomobile is a frugal commuter?.

This is eighty grands worth of adrenaline rush, its about Lomondside and the Rest-and-be-thankful at dawn, the Creg on Mad Sunday, Penrith to Alston at two in the morning or any of the classic Alpine passes.

It is not about being bored.

[P.I. Stazzer-Newt]

what do you think is the practical top milage for a road vehicle is/should be?
Per gallon or per hour?
70 mpg in swift but unobtrusive cruise mode - would be nice.

On open twisty two-lane road, well supplied with bends, my personal limit is about 135 mph. But the meat of the matter is the 50 to 110 bracket.

[Hwyl]

Originally posted by Katherine:
Seafox, you got a picture? Sounds like the one I saw at a show awhile back.http://www.peraves.ch/bilder/gelb.gif
This could be your next project Katherine. Your demographic would alrady own a Harley and a Snowmobile. They'd have to be more "masculine" looking for the U.S. (maybe an exposed air intake). I know you don't like hybrids, but maybe you could make it all electric transmission with a built in 50cc generator for ememrgency get you home charging.

[Dan McCosh]

And then you pull up to a stop light, and the wheels don't go down.....like a turtle on its back in the baking sun.

[P.I. Stazzer-Newt]

Have a gander at these Movies (http://www.peraves.ch/movie_e.htm)

[Dan McCosh]

See this: http://www.dself.dsl.pipex.com/MUSEUM/TRANSPORT/2wheelcar/monotrace/monotrace.htm

[PeterSibley]

My current comuter is a Diahatsu Charade,1000cc 3 cylinder ,55mpg,and I've seen 75mph on the clock,it would probably do 80 ;)

I reckon 100 mpg in a small car is a reasonable expectation, especially with the new light weight and high performance diesels.Performance would probably be fine.It all comes down to mass.

[Keith Wilson]

The trouble with really small cars in the US is the same reason passenger trains don't work very well. With the exception of some relatively small areas in the Northeast, LA, and possibly Chicago, the country is too large and just isn't densely populated enough, unlike most parts of Europe and Japan. The distances between cities are too great. I live in a metropolitan area of about three million people, but the nearest large cities are Milwaukee or Chicago, both six or seven hours away. This is farther than most people want to drive a microcar. Two-seaters are pretty impractical, really. A very small car then becomes a luxury, or at least a second or third vehicle. An economical four-seater around the size of a VW Golf or Ford Focus that can carry two in comfort and four in only moderate discomfort is about the minimum that will sell in large numbers - that is, unless the price of gas gets vastly higher.

I don't know how many attempts there have been over the years to make a motorcycle into practical transportation for the masses, something one can ride in all weather without unpleasantness. Maybe someday one will succeed. That streamlined thing is interesting, and would probably be a blast to ride, but I can’t see it becoming more than an expensive toy for a couple of enthusiasts.

[PeterSibley]

Keith, the reasoning behind your post is probably accepted by most drivers,it is however,a little faulty.I live 100 miles from my nearest reasonable sized city (1.5 million) but 95%,perhaps more of my trips are well under 20 miles ....easy and comfortable in the little one .I occassionally take it to the city on the freeway and it comfortably sits on the legal limit....thats 110 km /hr or 68 mph for you.Its 5 speed and geared high...things have changed a lot since the Morris Mini 1000 :D

I tend to think its an emotional thing,possibly with a large dollop of machismo thrown in.Boys like big cars,big engines and anything else is an attack on something,well,basic.From an engineering perspective it just not a problem.Its a social engineering problem :D and thats a whole new challenge !

[Katherine]

It's not that I dislike Hybrids, heck I specialized in them in college, it's just that I think they have some distance to go before they are a replacment for the standard car.

Dan may be right about the turtle on the sun thing. At least with a reqular motorcycle the rider can use their foot as a prop.

Many minicars do not do well in the U.S. just because of the distances they have to cover. A 2 seater is just not practical to the U.S. Why do you think the automakers tend to only make 2 seaters in there sports car line ups. A sports car is a toy, not the weekly grocery getter.

[ 02-23-2005, 09:28 PM: Message edited by: Katherine ]

[PeterSibley]

My Charade is a four seater ! Just.It will comfortably carry 4 people at highway speeds...68 mph here...just don't ask for much acceleration from there up smile.gif It does however score 50 mpg at 68. smile.gif

[Keith Wilson]

Peter, I think your Diahatsu falls at the small end of practical cars. It carries four people in a pinch (literally, if the ones in the back seat are tall), will fit a fair amount of stuff, and will not frighten you on the freeway. They sold Charades here for a while, never with any great sucess, but I think that was due to lack of name recognition and intense competition from other (and often better) Japanese cars. I was talking about things like the Swatch/Mercedes car - VERY small and light with two seats.

Although there is a component of machismo - it's one of the main reasons SUVs are so popular - people don't buy cars, at least not first cars, for 90% of their trips. Just about any car, no matter how small, will work for that. They buy them for the other 10% of the time, when they want to drive eight hours to Chicago, or squeeze in four kids and go to a baseball game, or carry a bunch of stuff home from the store.

Besides machismo, that's the reason people buy SUVs and larger cars. The disadvantages (as long as gas is relatively cheap) are fairly small 95% of the time - higher cost, increased rollover risk, harder to park, handles like a truck - while the other 5% (or maybe even less) of the time they do things that a small car simply can't do - tow something large, carry a big load, pack in a crowd.

The real minicars just have too limited a range of capabilities. For 90% of most people's driving they would work fine, but people don;t want to give up that other 10%.

The BMW C1 is useful until it snows.

[ 02-24-2005, 10:38 AM: Message edited by: Keith Wilson ]

[PeterSibley]

Probably a good analysis Keith.....given that I don't know the US market.Cars the size of the Charade are quite popular here ,mainly for commuting but then petrol is $4.50 to $5.50 Australia per gallon :D .Amazing how loud the hip pocket talks.

You are right about population spread, 95% of Australians live in cities and small cars have lots of advantages.Enormous number of SUVs though :mad: ,very strange,most never see adirt road...hell ,I live on a dirt road !

As for towing etc,yup, my other car is a one ton ute.Only use it for work....costs twice the Charades fuel and its slow.

[Lucky Luke]

I ride a Chinese copy of the scooter Honda @, 125 cc. Price: 1100$. (Real Honda @: 5000$....3900 $ difference is what??????) It uses about 2 liters for 100 kilometers (well over 100 mpg...do the maths!)

But I live in a country where it rains only a few hours a day during half of the year (well....then it RAINS!), temperatre is mild all year round ;) , and in a crowded 8 (or 9?)million people city (Saigon), where everybody is on two wheelers.

I am happy not to contribute to the CO2 emission too much.... but would surely do differently if I was in the US. I would, however, NEVER drive a 450 cu.in. engine SUV.... unless it uses hydrogen obtained from geothermal hot water or solar panels:p Long time to go !!!!

Different problems, different solutions, but one rule: do not harm the planet. Matters to me more than my little frustrated ego....

I think that this has to be adressed, really seriously, in the US: 4% of the world just cannot produce 25% of the waste!

[ 02-25-2005, 02:58 AM: Message edited by: Lucky Luke ]

[martin schulz]

Bring back the Messerschmitt Kabinenroller !

...adopt the construction (including the fighter-plane cockpit) put in a new engine and voilá

http://www.kabinenroller.de/images/titel.jpg
http://www.schildershop24.de/artimg/large/949.jpg

The fourwheel version, the "Tiger" had a max speed of 103 mp/h.

http://vnexpress.net/Vietnam/Oto-Xe-may/2004/04/3B9D1E42/Tg500_Tiger_1B.jpg

[ 02-25-2005, 04:11 AM: Message edited by: martin schulz ]

[martin schulz]

and if you don't like the Messerschmitt Kabinenroller , because it's too slow, how about the Messerschmitt ME 109

http://www.diggerhistory.info/images/air-ww2-enemy/mess109.jpg

[ 02-25-2005, 04:11 AM: Message edited by: martin schulz ]

[PeterSibley]

I remember those !! :D I'll take the tiger, thank you very much !

[Keith Wilson]

Yes, I think the Messerschmitt would need a new engine. An old-technology two-stroke (probably without loop scavenging even) where you mix gas and oil pollutes so spectacularly that the most bloated of modern SUVs look downright green in comparison. I remember fondly, although a little guiltily, laying down a smoke screen as I pulled away from stop lights on my Suzuki GT750.

Hey, Martin, are there any 2-stroke Trabants still on the road? One occasionally sees a 2-stroke Saab here, but they were always very rare and are now exotic collectors' items.

[martin schulz]

Originally posted by Keith Wilson:
Hey, Martin, are there any 2-stroke Trabants still on the road? One occasionally sees a 2-stroke Saab here, but they were always very rare and are now exotic collectors' items.Of course, but more in eastern Germany. And some, who were lucky then, are driving the Tranbant with the VW Polo engine which the GDR produced in the end.

[seafox]

While I admit the eco is a luxuary high powered vehicle I like the concept and think it could be a good starting point for very economical long distance cruiser.

the first time I saw the ecomobil was on the inventions show on the discovery channel. my jaw droped open because there was a design I had been working on the only difference was mine had a vertical stablizer and the side wheels came down in a different fashion (same as the french car from the 1920s above)
in some movies of the ecomobille when it falls on its side a simple gunning of the engine snaps it upright again and the way the outrigger wheel is positioned when it is on its side none of the body touches the ground.

my dream is for 125 mpg or better. something you could drive out to the coat from utah for $10 in gas the tandom seating cuts the frontal area greatly and habing only two wheels on the road means less rolling resistance and also fewer tires to replace when the time comes. in the early 1990s discovery show the designer spoke how one had already proved safe crashing at 160 mph and the driver walked away unhurt.
Dr malwicki of california (www.carnosaur.com) who designed the 155 mpg at 55 mph california comuter car in 1980 has been working on a two seater called C2C designed for 185 mpg , two passanger and with fuil tanks in the wings able to drive from LA to NYC with out refuiling dr malwickis vehicles are three wheelers with two in front and one in back. their is another similar design out there that was origionally a electric race car converted to street use the mods included moving the batters ourside the frame and installing a passanger seat and upgrades to the structure which was origionally as light as can be.
has any one heard of electrothon racing?
jeffery

[Katherine]

Seafox,
You seem to have a fascination with alternitive fuel vehicles, have you ever considered building one? smile.gif They're not that technically difficult and you can probably find plans online. Most are based off of something small like a go-cart or Miata chassis.

[PeterSibley]

Enjoyed that rave Seafox smile.gif smile.gif The used to be an event called the Mobil Economy Drive here in Oz ,for experimental vehicles ,very interesting stuff. results up to 1000 mpg !

My idea, too dangerous to actually use on the road (too low to see )would be a recumbent trike frame http://www.greenspeed.com.au/
with a Honda 50cc moped motor.I had one years ago ...it used to get 240 mpg standard !!In a recumbent frame ,with reduced wind resistance you could probably pull 350/400 and 60 mph.

[seafox]

I have been dreaming of building a vehicle,high milage, road since I started college. I don't know that aulternate fuil as much as ault designs.
my first attempt was a trailor/power unit for a bycycle. the power was transfered to the single wheel via a cone. I never reached the testing stage (luckly) because I can picture a jack knife at speed and being pined and julianed by moving parts of engin and transmission. ;)

I have a book " The new electric Vehicles" by michael hackleman. I enjoy it more for the idea of small personal transportation than electric power its self. strangly enough my father was an electrition's mate in the navy. but I never could asorb more than a surface understanding . years ago Mr Hackleman had another book about converting vehicles to electric power one funny part was he was working on a electric work vehicle ( like a toro workmate or a cushman trike that the metermaids rode around in) and he conected something not intending to and it took off through the back of the garage and down a hill toward a creek. he managed to rip the wire off the battery before cart and him went for swim.

I have colected parts over the years and plan on doing my own design. I have been much inspired by three wheel enthusasts on the web in yahoo groups their is both atilting three wheeler group and a feet forward motorcycle group of which the ecomobill is the largest design but ranged down through vespas to tiny 50cc scooters. maxmatic . com is a wonderfull web papge of a guy who has built a couple of electric, the latest inspired by bucky fullers three wheels 11 passanger car of the 1930s,

my two fold problem is settling on which configeration to build; a two wheeler with either retractable or non retractable stablizer wheels or a three wheeler and if three then twoin front which is better design or one in front which is simpler.
thankyou for any sugestions
jeffery

[seafox]

ps my other problem is actually finishing something

Peter
it is a good idea you have there about the recombant trike frame if you enclose it and paint it brite orange or yellow I expect people would be able to see you well enough. I think the ultimate milage was by a volkswagon exparamental vehicle (diesel) driven by a 91 pound secratary to something over 3000 mpg. of course this was at a max speed of 12 mph and involved coating down to 6 mph before restarting the engine.

I noticed a two passager big gocart/offroad buggy selling for $3000 at a chineese product importer here in clearfield. it seems to me that with a body on that vehicle it would make an ok town car.
jeffery