Urbee
= Urbee is a two-passenger hybrid car designed to be incredibly fuel efficient, easy to repair, safe to drive, and inexpensive to own.
URL = http://www.urbee.net/
Description
1. John Robb:
"What makes this car interesting is that it's the first car to be printed in 3D (using a large Stratasys printer) in high strength plastics. This means it has the potential to be a car that can be sent as a computer file to a local shop, where it is "printed" and assembled to order (no more car factories, both foreign and domestic?)." (http://www.resilientcommunities.com)
2.
"Urbee is designed to be environmentally sustainable. This is because it can efficiently store and use exactly the amount of solar and wind energy you can collect on a one-car garage in one day. If you want to go farther in a day, you can use its ethanol powered engine.
Urbee is being developed by volunteers who believe we need a better way to move around that does less damage to our environment."
Characteristics
1. John Robb:
"It is:
- designed to meet and exceed US car safety standards.
- 12 times more efficient than the Prius (!)
- uses only 8 horsepower and runs on a combo of electricity and ethanol (yet can go highway speeds)."
(http://www.resilientcommunities.com)
2.
"The Urbee design team had a vision. That vision was written out and posted on the walls of our shop. It is the fundamental design ideals we followed in working on the Urbee Car Project.
- Use the least amount of energy possible for every kilometre traveled.
- Cause as little pollution as possible during manufacturing, operation and recycling of the car.
- Use materials available as close as possible to where the car is built.
- Use materials that can be recycled again and again.
- Use parts and materials that last as long as possible.
- Be simple to understand, build, and repair.
- Be as safe as possible to drive.
- Meet the standards and regulations applicable to traditional cars.
- Be buildable in small quantities so we don't have to wait for it to become more widely accepted before we can begin manufacturing it for the public.
- Be mass-producable so it can be built more economically once it becomes more widely accepted.
- Be affordable.
- Be visually appealing."
(http://www.urbee.net/vision/)
Discussion
by Matt Bubbers:
"The idea for the car is simple: to create a practical, inexpensive vehicle that can be built and run sustainably using technology that exists today. The name, “Urbee,” stands for Urban electric with ethanol as backup. It would be powered by solar-energy from panels mounted on top of a house or garage when possible, but could use a household electric outlet as a backup, as well as either an ethanol- or gasoline-powered internal combustion engine.
“It all comes down to physics,” Kor insists. He has a professors way of making complex ideas sound quite simple - as if anybody who studied grade 12 science would eventually come up with a similar design.
“As we embark upon another century of automobility, the condition of our environment and our state of awareness regarding it, demands that we rethink how we design cars for a global population,” Kor wrote to us in an earlier e-mail. He is a professional engineer with more than 35 years experience designing for civil, aerospace and transport projects. He’s the team’s leader and one of the Urbee’s senior designers. So yes, he knows what he’s talking about.
“As affluence increases around the world, cars will surpass two billion within this century. The associated negative environmental impacts can only be mitigated by designing into the engineering prescription of each new car the very principles of sustainability. This paper describes how the automotive industry should do this,” he continued.
What they’re proposing – and building – then is nothing less than a Model T for the 21st century. It’s not the first time Kor and his team have drawn that comparison.
“We have always envisioned Urbee to be classified similarly to cars like the Model T, the Volkswagen, the Citroen 2CV, the Austin Mini, the Fiat 500, and other basic, economical, and highly useful mass-appeal cars of the past,” he said.
From the beginning of the design stages, Kor set about building a car for himself under the assumption that others are in a similar situation. It is a vehicle for, “people that work hard for a living. Responsible people that have to put up with a lot, have to get things done each day, and need a helping hand from technology. . . For families, like mine, I envisioned this as the second family car. For students, it could be their first car, and for retired people, perhaps their last car. Due to its long-life design, for some people it could be the only car they ever own, which would truly be groundbreaking economic and environmental performance.”
This is a lot to ask from a grassroots team, no matter how clever or experienced. They don’t have anything close to the research and development money large automakers – or even small ones – can put behind a project. But the idea was always to use what was available but do so in new and innovative ways." (http://autos.sympatico.ca/features/8276/urbee-how-winnipeg-could-change-the-car-world)
