Very Clever vehicle
 

It's a... vehicle (trike?) that runs on compressed gas and tops out at about 60 mph. Prototype only so far and it reminds me of an early 80's concept car that I think GM did.

http://www.ananova.com/news/story/sm_1817445.html

Very much like a recumbent bicycle but with a motor. However, can you imagine driving the highway, or even a busy city street, in this?

Since folks have a hard enough time seeing a motorcycle, can you imagine your survivability in this?

Steven

Looks pretty cool to me...
 

And fun!

-Sal

with something like that
 

I could REALLY reserve the use of my Element to long distance and heavy hauls.

It would work for everything else. And at 60mph, it would go on all the roads around here. But I wonder how difficult it is to get compressed gas - and what happens to compressed gas in an accident - if it's worse than gasoline in a regular accident. I guess I know absolutely nothing about compressed gas. Where else is it used?

I could see me buying one of these. Perfect for the nitch between the Segway and the car.

Pam

Another "E" owner here!
 

Pam,

Count me in as another Element owner! I LOVE it. I hardly use it (b/c of the Segway) but I love it.

-Sal

And here I thought I had it figured out. You raise an excellent point Pam. When I read compressed gas, I assumed they were talking about something akin to a scuba bottle and using an inert gas so the safety concern would be about the same as a dive tank. Since it could easily be CNG like some fleet vehicles, the safety would compare to those but with the smaller vehicle size.

Oh, I found links to the GM prototype from '83. It was called the lean machine and lived at epcot for a while.
http://www.3wheelers.com/gmlean.html
http://www.maxmatic.com/ttw_leanmachine.htm

Here is another link to the story. It shows a picture with a body on it.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/britain_green_carand a much larger picture here.
http://news.yahoo.com/photo/060425/4...YzBHNlYwN0bXA-

The more I read about it the more I'm intrigued.

The project's website is

http://www.bath.ac.uk/mech-eng/en-proj20/index.html

and it has some very interesting reading!

BTW, it is CNG and while there looks to be a 10 year (or more) wait for commerical production, there is a good chance this is only the first vehicle of this type we are going to see.

It's sponsors are pretty strong and with EU funding there is a future here.

Steven

Thanks for the added info guys,
A two seater with some luggage space means it is more than I thought.
I like the tank exchange system, similar to LPG tanks on gas grills I guess. I wonder if folks with gas heat could put a filler in the house.

It would look pretty cool with a Seg carrier on the back.

Here's another link and pictures about crash tests at Treehugger.
http://www.treehugger.com/files/2005...r_car_is_h.php