This tires is strong a design recent breacktrough. Tire is a great invention. Without the tire, the car will not be the same comfortable as it is nowadays. However, there is a company named Resilient Tech give us a new prototype which replaces the key part of tire with a non-pneumatic honeycomb structure. I guess it won’t be comfortable for most drivers, however, you don’t need to worry about tire bursting.
Monday, January 11, 2010
Sunday, January 10, 2010
New Design Concept Icare motorcycle Ideas
Maybe I’m still on an awesome motorcycle kick from The Dark Knight, but I saw this Icare prototype by the folks over at Enzyme and nearly wet myself. The Icare looks something like Kanada’s bike from Akira but stolen and appropriated by Batman, and I absolutely love it. There seem to be two versions as well, the one in the top photo, and then the two below it. I’m slightly in love with the top version and it’s uni-light, something about that makes my heart flutter.
The bike is designed to use a six-cylinder 1.8 liter Honda engine, which I guess should give you some pretty decent power. I just think it would be awesome to tear around town on one of these, people would totally think you’re some kind of super hero. But as usual this is still just a prototype, and I’m sure when it comes out it’ll cost a pretty penny, but it’s always nice to look, right?
Winglet – Toyota’s Segway rival
Segway has been very popular all over the world. But Japan’s moto giant Toyota expect to release a new similar product named Winglet to compete with Segway. Although the top speed of winglet, which comes with three sizes, is only 3.7MPH (versus the Segway’s 12.5 MPH) it is enough for the indoor traffic and is expected to be very popular.
Saturday, January 2, 2010
Zipcar for the holidays
Visiting family over the holidays is very important for us, and has proven to be one of the main difficulties of not having a car. Originally, when planning our car-free adventure/life, we'd calculated spending a certain amount on car rentals for trips to Connecticut to visit family--usually we can rent a car for $30-$40/day from the airport over a weekend. However, as we discovered at Thanksgiving, car rental companies will triple their daily rate over holiday weekends. So our little three day trip at Thanksgiving cost more than $350 just for rental, plus we had to pay for gas. It was worth it, but more than we'd expected (by a lot).
Over Christmas, we made another three-day trip to CT, but this time we used Zipcar. It turns out that you can rent a Zipcar for a maximum of four days. The daily rate does not change over the holidays. We rented a Honda Element for $89/day, which is a little less than what we'd have paid from Thrifty or the other big car rental agencies, but all the taxes and gas were included, so we came out about $100 ahead. And I didn't have to schlep myself over the the airport and back. Over Thanksgiving, it took me 90 minutes just to pick up the car. With Zipcar, I just needed to walk 5-10 minutes from home.
There are some cheaper car rental places around, very small companies, but the online reviews of them are pretty scary. If anyone in the Boston area knows of reputable ones, I'd be interested in hearing about them. For now, though, it looks like Zipcar will help us out over the holidays.
Over Christmas, we made another three-day trip to CT, but this time we used Zipcar. It turns out that you can rent a Zipcar for a maximum of four days. The daily rate does not change over the holidays. We rented a Honda Element for $89/day, which is a little less than what we'd have paid from Thrifty or the other big car rental agencies, but all the taxes and gas were included, so we came out about $100 ahead. And I didn't have to schlep myself over the the airport and back. Over Thanksgiving, it took me 90 minutes just to pick up the car. With Zipcar, I just needed to walk 5-10 minutes from home.
There are some cheaper car rental places around, very small companies, but the online reviews of them are pretty scary. If anyone in the Boston area knows of reputable ones, I'd be interested in hearing about them. For now, though, it looks like Zipcar will help us out over the holidays.
Thursday, December 10, 2009
Pat's Bicycle Life
I love this image that my friend Jonas put this image together for me (thanks, Jonas!). Now that I've got a bike stand (borrowed from my friend, Mike), I feel more fully engaged in the bicycle life than ever.
Tuesday, December 8, 2009
Reframing our personal map
Without a car, we've started to realize that our personal landscape has shifted in scale and scope. For obvious reasons, we no longer go to grocery stores 7 miles away (yes, I do miss weekly visits to Russo's). It makes a lot more sense to hit the local Trader Joe's and Stop & Shop with the bike and trailer.
I've also noticed that having a car allowed us to be complacent about the professional services we receive. When we first moved to Boston in 2000, it took a while to find a pediatric dentist. My son has some special needs that made finding the right dentist pretty important. Even though we lived in Roxbury, we ended up going to a dentist in Cambridge. Even after we moved to Brookline, we kept going to Cambridge. But we had a car, so it could work. Even though we could have looked for someone closer, we never took the trouble. It's a hassle to change your dentist, doctor, vet, hairdresser. It's much easier to stay in the same routine. But going to professionals outside your neighborhood comes at a cost--there is an environmental impact of the travel, it eats up extra time from your life, and your money supports an office and workers in a town that's not your own.
A couple weeks ago, I had to take the kids to the dentist for checkups. But the appointment was too close to the end of school to effectively get there by bus, so I ended up renting a zipcar. With traffic, it took us almost an hour to get there (it's about 4 miles from home). Going to the dentist ended up consuming three hours and cost $30 in car rental fees. When I had our own car, I wouldn't have noticed the cost (though it was still costing me), and I would have ignored the time spent.
I've since found a new dentist for the kids, one that we can walk or bike to. And all it took was a couple e-mails to other parents at my son's school, and a phone call to the dental offices. I should have made the change years ago, but the convenience of the car allowed the situation to continue (even though it actually was less convenient).
(It turns out that our old dentist is retiring anyway, so we wouldn't have gotten to see him much anymore anyway.)
More and more, we're rethinking how we're accessing life around us and bringing it back closer to home.
I've also noticed that having a car allowed us to be complacent about the professional services we receive. When we first moved to Boston in 2000, it took a while to find a pediatric dentist. My son has some special needs that made finding the right dentist pretty important. Even though we lived in Roxbury, we ended up going to a dentist in Cambridge. Even after we moved to Brookline, we kept going to Cambridge. But we had a car, so it could work. Even though we could have looked for someone closer, we never took the trouble. It's a hassle to change your dentist, doctor, vet, hairdresser. It's much easier to stay in the same routine. But going to professionals outside your neighborhood comes at a cost--there is an environmental impact of the travel, it eats up extra time from your life, and your money supports an office and workers in a town that's not your own.
A couple weeks ago, I had to take the kids to the dentist for checkups. But the appointment was too close to the end of school to effectively get there by bus, so I ended up renting a zipcar. With traffic, it took us almost an hour to get there (it's about 4 miles from home). Going to the dentist ended up consuming three hours and cost $30 in car rental fees. When I had our own car, I wouldn't have noticed the cost (though it was still costing me), and I would have ignored the time spent.
I've since found a new dentist for the kids, one that we can walk or bike to. And all it took was a couple e-mails to other parents at my son's school, and a phone call to the dental offices. I should have made the change years ago, but the convenience of the car allowed the situation to continue (even though it actually was less convenient).
(It turns out that our old dentist is retiring anyway, so we wouldn't have gotten to see him much anymore anyway.)
More and more, we're rethinking how we're accessing life around us and bringing it back closer to home.
Tuesday, December 1, 2009
Saroukh el-Jamahiriya (Libyan Rocket) 2009
Here is the 2009 version of Muammar Gaddafis "Saroukh el-Jamahiriya (Libyan Rocket)" a car which made its debut in 1999, exactly 10 years ago.
The “Libyan Rocket”, as the prototype is called, is described as an “elegant sedan” 17 feet long, more than six feet wide, with a 3-liter, V-6 gasoline engine.According to the BBC and Fox News, it also has airbags, an unspecified ‘electronic defense system’, and a collapsible bumper.
The car can go hundreds of miles on a flat tire, a feature that could come in handy while driving in the vast Libyan desert. Other safety features include a device to cut off the fuel supply to avoid a fire in case of accident.
Domenico Morali, CEO of Tesco TS SpA, an automotive design company based in Turin, Italy, said Qaddafi joined in discussions about the car’s styling and asked for an original car using Libyan materials including marble, leather and fabric.
The car was unveiled in Tripoli at the end of an African Union summit.
According to the BBC, construction of a factory to produce the car was to have began in October 2009 in Tripoli. (ANI)
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