Exasis is a car all in plastics. Yes, plastics, materials made out of filthy oil. Heresy? Did we loose our mind? Wait a minute.
The car looks cool not only because of its transparent look, but also because it was developed with special properties plastics. For example, the panel, which is molded in a electrically conductive compound from Bayer, doesn’t need any wire. No more wire means more space inside the car while keeping it small. Another example is the car chassis itself, equaling the resistance of more traditional cars, but weighting a lot less.
You get it, it’s all about the weight. Such a vehicle weights about 750kg. With this structure, “one horsepower has to shift only 5 kg - and that is about the same as a very nippy Porsche,” reports Azom tech magazine. Less fuel consumption equals some big economies at the long run, and if you know it does contain a CO2-emission-reducing bioethanol engine, the Exasis might worth some considerations from us.
The car is the new concept of Rinspeed, a Swiss car engineering company, and will be at the upcoming Geneva Motor Show in next March. We wish Rinspeed would drop plastics made of oils and consider plastics made out of corn to turn the vehicle 100% biodegradable. So now, do you still think we lost our mind?
David Williams – February 28, 2007
Where is the protection from the elements, snow, rain, cold, heat or wind. Seems rather limited.
Tut – February 28, 2007
It’s a sports car. Rear-wheel drive, and like the Audi TT for instance, it doesn’t have any roof top. The security parts are mold in the chassis itself.