ARNOLD KLING
August 14, 2011
The Top Political Contributors
August 11, 2011
Gender and the New Commanding Heights
August 11, 2011
Jamie Galbraith Makes an Assumption
August 11, 2011
Macroeconometrics: The Science of Hubris
August 10, 2011
Real and Nominal Bond Yields
BRYAN CAPLAN
August 14, 2011
The Effect of Thumb Sucking on Income
August 12, 2011
The Voice of Cold, Hard Truth to All Would-Be Educators
August 12, 2011
Ability, Morality, and Prosperity: A Paper and a Report
August 11, 2011
The Theory of Time and Frittering
August 10, 2011
Male Variance and the Remnants of the Gender Gap
DAVID HENDERSON
August 9, 2011
Hayek in "Unbroken", Part Two
August 8, 2011
Hayek in "Unbroken"
August 5, 2011
James Bovard on the Peace Corps
August 4, 2011
Summers Way Off on FDR and 1941
August 3, 2011
The "Amazon" Tax
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We can easily produce an electric car for less than $2,000. I can make them in my backyard, they are so simple.
The problem is that the easily built electric car is about 750 pounds in weight and cannot be used on the roads without concrete barriers to protect the driver.
Assuming the cost was 100% batteries, that would be a range of 25 miles with current technology.
A car you can pack into your briefcase, George Jetson style, would really help public transportation. The biggest hassle of taking the train into town is that I have to take the train out of town.
Whether it should be taken seriously and whether it's a hoax are two different questions. The domain registration information traces back to a California inventor with a WIPO patent related to "personal flight vehicles". Far-fetched, silly, or asinine, but I'm not convinced it's a hoax. Just run a whois search on the various XP Car domain names.
Yes, I think wind resistance would quite the limiting factor.
Yes, I think wind resistance would quite the limiting factor.
Has anyone ever considered building special tunnels for cars? They have reduced air pressure and/or fans blowing air strongly in one direction, say at 20MPH. This significantly raises the speed at which cars can travel before losing efficiency from wind.
I have no idea if this has been studied before or is a stupid idea. Just tossing it out there.
I'd give it something greater than 0.1% chance that it's the car equivalent of the "fabless" chip manufacturers. Creating something at a low burn rate is a laudable business strategy and companies remain virtual for as long as possible these days. But in this particular case I'm also dubious based on other clues.