Formula One design vet creating eco-smart city car
The styles from Europe this year are decidedly green and small.
Designer Gordon Murray, best known for his work on Formula One racing cars, detailed on Monday a new city car design called the T.25 that is aimed at reducing congestion and lowering pollution.
The planned T.25 in green compared with (going left to right) a VW Golf, a Fiat 500, a Smart Car, and a Mini Cooper.
(Credit: Gordon Murray Design)Compared even with existing compact cars, the T.25 will be small: it can be parked headlong against the curb, allowing three cars to fit in one parking space.
Gordon Murray Design is about halfway through its two-year planning process and plans to have a prototype on the road early next year.
To lower the car's carbon footprint, the company has rethought the cradle-to-grave lifecycle of the car. For example, many of the parts, including the capacity and body, can be recycled and the manufacturing process is being set up with a minimal number of parts to reduce energy use during fabrication.
The first versions of the car will run on either gas or diesel and get about 60 miles per gallon, the company told Greentech Media.
No more driving around the block to wait for a space. Three T.25's fit in the space for one car.
(Credit: Gordon Murray Design)The company intends to work with outside manufacturers to lower the cost and sell the car to city dwellers in Asia and Europe for between $10,000 and $11,000, it told Greentech Media.
Overall, the car should have low or zero emissions, the company says.
Compact cars are already more popular in Europe and Asia than in the U.S. Automakers have helped create demand for SUVs and trucks as passenger cars. But with rising fuel prices and growing environmental awareness, city cars appear to be staging a comeback.
The Smart Car is already cruising European and American streets. And Think Global from Norway intends to market its all-electric city car, called the Think City, in Europe and the United States next year.
Martin LaMonica is a senior writer for CNET's Green Tech blog. He started at CNET News in 2002, covering IT and Web development. Before that, he was executive editor at IT publication InfoWorld. E-mail Martin. 






Actually, that is true in the US when it comes to farmers and other outdoor-type people as well. But we currently live in the middle of a large city (in the suburbs) and half of the homes in our community have huge jacked up pickups.....
............................
Converting fuel to electrical energy directly right now requires a pure fuel, such as hydrogen. Again something that is not readially available. If the primary fuel is battery power for a plug in hybrid it should be able to run that car on battery power for daily needs (commuting, soccer momming, shopping). It's going to be hard to beat adding a IC engine to allow longer ranges needed for vacations and the like.
Let's just have fewer people! We need a target population for our country and the planet.
.
The majority of commuters are still alone in their cars today. If you could give them the same mobility, much easier parking, super cheap purchase price and insurance, etc. I think we are reaching the point where it starts to look like a no brainer.
.
Just make sure it can seat two people. So many small alt-cars have failed for trying to get away with a one-seater. People just won't buy that. Even a scooter has room for two.
- by Mr_Reason July 10, 2008 3:31 AM PDT
- The t25 should be 4 start n cap same as most 4x4, the one thing u cant aviode is tiny car v massive truck, but to be honest and 4x4 would loose that one too. The thing most people forget is the damgeu do building the car, the T25 looks to be very low carbon footprint in manufacturing (little mettle I think as well). If u look at the engery need to melt/pres forge all the parts in a 4x4 it allot more damgeing then the fuel ull use for most of its life....... 2 tons of monster to get stuck in a jam doing 5 ph and carriying nothing more then a brief case. In 2 years time people will look back on this period and go " did I really drive one of those to work".
- Like this Reply to this comment
-
(15 Comments)