this is a cool ride, hope they make it

http://litmotors.com/
a few quibbles, wonder why they did not wait to shoot the vid of the dressed out (paint etc) prototype (my guess running out of bucks) and keeping the gyro’s alive and happy for a long time (5000 hours?) could be a real issue. It also is going to be only for the sunny states or summer use, no provision for a heater (heat pump maybe) unless the battery pack and motor does that job…sort of.

Nice find! Site indicates 2014 model. At $19,900 estimated cost, it is very compelling compared to a $80K Monotracer.

Decent enough concept, but it doesn’t rekindle anything for me.

Renders look nice. Real thing not so much. Why would anyone get this for 19k when you can get a car with better usability for the same or less? Gyro stuff seems a bit gimmicky. Just because you can, doesn’t mean you should. Collision case I don’t believe. The amount of force involved, no way it could remain upright.

R

The motorbike division of Honda came to my school and wanted a new idea to increase their market share and I proposed something like this because they already have cool self-balancing technology and I found a very cheap earlier gyro tech than what they are using here to complement it… but they weren’t interested at all. All they wanted was some new styling, though I don’t understand how that will increase their market share. New use of technology like this is the future.

So, production is scheduled for 2014, and you can “reserve” one, now, for $250US. Sounds Kickstarter-esque… except they’re relying on some nice computer generated images of their production model.

I’m with zippy, one would have thought that they’d have put a bit more effort into their prototype if they were going to make it the centerpiece of their fund raising promo vid.

Still, glad stuff like this exists. It is great to see people challenging the traditional paradigm and trying to make it happen. I was bummed about the collapse of Aptera. I hope these guys go beyond that and deliver.

A bit of filler, some paint and some RP or salvage yard lights would make a huge difference.

Why? why do people drop 20-30K on a Harley or some daft 3 wheeled Canadian thing? It’s cool, it’s hackable and its not a Honda.

Just to echo Yo! thoughts, I’m not sure on the strength of the aesthetic, but what an amazing thing. I’m so glad people do things like this…

its really a nice one for a single user. there will much advantages of it, energy consumption would be much lower and it would be easy to maintain it, however difficult to drive :stuck_out_tongue:

Love the Joy Division backing track. Richard is right, there’s no way the gyros can keep up with the acceleration rates in a collision. Jerking it with a pickup like they did is maybe 0.3g, and even then you can clearly see the lag in response. A pretty minor crash can be 20g. Still cool though. I’ll all for doing things just because you can.

I love when people make an extremely complicated solution for a small car.

Interestingly, the Weiner small car museum is being liquidated. Pick up some real oddballs at this one:

http://www.rmauctions.com/PressRelease.cfm?PressID=889

You can see car details here:

WOW what a shame! Great collection! My favs

http://microcarmuseum.com/tour/velorex.html
http://microcarmuseum.com/tour/fend-flitzer-101.html
http://microcarmuseum.com/tour/reyonnah-blue.html