Teqniqal; I'm not sure what the power difference is between toast with jelly and bread with butter. Although I think the lowest power rating would be bread with margarine. This would be a good military-funded research project to diecover which anti-gravity engine has the most power / heaviest lift. Perhaps the lifting power is relative to the size / breed of feline ? Maybe a siamese for a compact, perhaps a lion for an SUV, maybe a cheetah for the sports cars ?
Disney had all these ideas decades ago. VW's only advance is a slick video. Nothing new or practical here. Nothing actually a working prototype- rare earth geology complete BS. Good reveiw of current mag lev trains at wikipedia. Get real.
How I despise these kinds of articles - they are chock full of idiotic eco-speak nonsense. Who picks this crap for and otherwise respectable engineering e-mag?
"Zero Emission" Right - what about the emissions from the massive electrical generating plants required to support millions of levitating cars? what about the emissions created to dig up and retool millions of miles of roadbed? What about the emissions from the traffic jams as this work is being done? What about the emisssion to mine, smelt, refine, process and ship the copper, steel, and aluminum required for this pipe dream?
If anyone will stop snorting their own perfume long enough to use some common sense, they'll quickly see that the existing infrastructure is a huge investment with high value which continues to deliver a great service to a wide variety of existing customers.
Focus our energies on maintaining and improving that infrastructure, rather than trying to obsolete it wholesale for a pipe dream.
Otherwise, if we're talking pipe-dream, then break out the jet packs and flying cars. They make a lot more sense than levitating cars running on millions of miles on nonexsitant roadbeds requiring billions of pounds of nonexistant copper, steel, and aluminum to create...and the engineering problems are actually far less daunting.
Quite a few years ago I designed the controls system for a maglev train car, which did not require any active elements on the car, other than a large aluminum plate as the base, and motion element of the motor. In theory it could work, but the sad reality is that the power to make it work would be quite heavy, probably far more than the lift that it could provide. And the roadways would have to be fairly good conductors. So any videos of cars floating quietly are actually cartoons. At least until we have a major breakthrough in power generation technology, or superconductivity for AC in strong magnetic fiels.
This really isn't as far-fetched as one might think. This car flies the same way spaceships from other worlds do. Inside they have cats in harnesses that have jellied toast strapped to thier backs. The basic physics of the universe become unstable because the 'cat always lands on it's feet' force is counteracted by the 'jellied bread always lands jelly side down' force. The result is levitation! No German engineering involved.
Using CGI to demonstrate a concept outside the realm of physics is fraud. Why is this having any more serious discussion among engineers than the latest Chris Angel YouTube video? Entertaining yes, science? ...any learned person knows there's not a chance in hades this ccould happen with anything else other than the worlds most powerful super conductors burried into each pathway. Simply entertainment.
The idea of hover cars and hover boards that work by pushing against an installed metal grid or naturally occurring mineral veins in the ground is directly lifted from "Uglies" by Scott Westerfeld. It is a pretty neat concept, but the cloud labeled "then a miracle occurs" is a fairly sizable thunderhead. Other than the "car" that the couple sits in, this is certainly CG. I especially like the part where they take an elevated off-ramp - must be relying on the rebar mesh in the concrete as they would be pretty far from all those in-ground minerals up there. Also, I didn't see any seat belts. What do you think would happen if a car that's shaped like a hampster wheel and no saftey restrainst finds a 10 meter stretch of pavement that didn't have underlying "minerals"? I'm thinking "worlds roundest coffin" or "largest runaway tire".
I am totally in agreement with you Eric. Design News should not have posted this article even if they did should have said at front this is a fake animation but..
Using almost 200 light-emitting diodes in the front and back of the new 2014 CTS, Cadillac designers are showing how LEDs can change the character of a vehicle.
We looked at a number of sources to determine this year's greenest cars, from KBB to automotive trade magazines to environmental organizations. These 14 cars emerged as being great at either stretching fuel or reducing carbon footprint.
From Dell / Intel® New Paradigms in Design Work Scott Hamilton, vertical market strategist for Dell Precision workstations, 5/2/2013 3
Early in my career, I worked as a draftsman and remember the days of drawing on vellum with numbered pencils and Mylar with plastic lead. This was a fun experience in the sense that I ...
I've been using workstations for more than 10 years and love finding ways to get more performance from my system. With demanding professional applications that require more power each ...
A lasting memory from my first job as an engineer in an auto assembly plant is standing on hard concrete at six in the morning, vending-machine coffee clutched in hand, listening to ...
A quick look into the merger of two powerhouse 3D printing OEMs and the new leader in rapid prototyping solutions, Stratasys. The industrial revolution is now led by 3D printing and engineers are given the opportunity to fully maximize their design capabilities, reduce their time-to-market and functionally test prototypes cheaper, faster and easier. Bruce Bradshaw, Director of Marketing in North America, will explore the large product offering and variety of materials that will help CAD designers articulate their product design with actual, physical prototypes. This broadcast will dive deep into technical information including application specific stories from real world customers and their experiences with 3D printing. 3D Printing is
To save this item to your list of favorite Design News content so you can find it later in your Profile page, click the "Save It" button next to the item.
If you found this interesting or useful, please use the links to the services below to share it with other readers. You will need a free account with each service to share an item via that service.
Tweet This
3 
