Legendary McLaren F1 designer talks up e-car plan

Mention the phrases 'Gordon Murray' and 'electric car' in the same sentence and images of gold-plated battery powered hypercars probably spring to mind. But you couldn't be more wrong, because Murray - designer of the McLaren F1 - has come over all environmentally conscientious as his latest brainchild, the T.27 electric city …

[Matt Bucknall]

Two per lane!?

Well, that'll make getting into the fast lane off the southbound M25/A2 junction every evening even more fun, thanks.

[Tim Spence]

Source

But we still need to sort out where this leccy is actually coming from!

[Flugal]

I'm sure it's great

But it does look as appalling as Gordon Murray's mullet.

[CC]

A better idea

The better idea is called a GO KART!

[Anonymous Coward]

So just to be clear...

He's replaced the tridion safety cell on the smart with cup holders and cubby holes..

I know which i'd rather be in.

[SmallYellowFuzzyDuck, how pweety!]

Two per lane? Eek!

Most drivers have trouble keeping to one per lane. That's going to be a scary sight, but I think it's just a sales gimmick that will never take off.

So the government continues to throw buckets of money at anything that can be considered remotely "Green"

Of course the finished product will be so expensive that no one will want to buy it.

Yeah I'm being cynical.

The first thing this goverment needs to do is encourage everyone to use public more often, but first they need to throw money at that to make it more desirable...

One day the whole country will just grind to a halt with traffic (Nearly there already) maybe roller skates will become popular again.

[Anonymous Coward]

Gordon Murray....

....is a very smart bloke, he came up with loads of innovative design features in the F1.

I would not be betting against him coming up with just as many in this new venture....

[Anonymous Coward]

Innovation my a*se

This seating layout has once again (surprise surprise) been done before. It was on one of the Daihatsu concept vehicles about 10 years back.

Innovation my a*se...

[Frank Bough]

One big mistake

... is the designer's assumption that, somehow, children need less space in a car than adults. It used to be true, until massive car seats became mandatory. Anyway, this thing is no more space efficient than the Mitsubishi iCar /iMiev upon whose engine it's based...

[Anonymous Coward]

Investment, my arse

"the help of £4.5m ($7.4m/€5m) investment from the British Government's Technology Strategy Board".

So it is an 'investment' - I wonder what rate of return we, the tax payer, can look forward to for our 'investment'? Probably 0% or less, so lets call it what it is - subsidising private 'enterprise'

[Piro]

Tiny death traps on wheels

Not exactly hard to design, but it's not going to ever be appropriate in mixed traffic with larger vehicles, and no matter how much people want it, there are still going to be huge vehicles on the road - even if it's just industrial/commercial. This will not take off

[Richard 102]

@Source

It comes from the plug, of course.

But I am working on a way to generate electricity from clubbing baby harp seals.

[Mike Flugennock]

Don't know about the seating

Far be it from me to second-guess a guy who designs McLaren F1s, but, still... that seating arrangement looks real goddamn' uncomfortable -- like a lot of mini-cars or pseudo-sportscars which claim to seat four, but only if your backseat passengers happen to be midgets.

Seriously, if these sketches are anything to go by, I've seen more backseat room in a goddamn' '72 Beetle. Oh, and I've seen future-car concepts that propose one-in-front, two-in-back seating going back to about the early 1940s, and it looked uncomfortable back then, too.

[John 62]

I want a Russian one

A T-90, preferably!

[Al fazed]

F1 off

£4.5 million to develop a three seater with no space for shopping !

Where are these 3 little green people going in their eco car ?

The same old landfill as before I'll bet.

Not so good really.

Electric vehicles simply move the emmissions shit from where they are driven to the place where battery is manufactured and the places where it's 'orrible heavy metal contents comes from.

What a bunch of technophantic twats.

The only green wankers around here are still the same wankers.

ALF

[Giles Jones]

@Tiny death traps on wheels

>but it's not going to ever be appropriate in mixed traffic with larger vehicles

Simple, eco car lanes.

The torque from an electric motor beats many combustion engines. If you don't phase in the power gradually to the drive shaft then it would shear it off.

[MPT]

seen it before

Sir Clive will be looking for a royalty on each one me thinks

[Lee Shields]

i

Why does everything start with the letter 'i' now?

iDamn iLucky iWe iAlready iHave iEnglish iOr iConversations iWould iTake iAges

[Anonymous Coward]

Formula 1 2011

Is this a precursor to the starting grid for F1 2011 me wonders? Are we soon to witness Louis Hamilton and Ruebens Barichello line up with Ernie's milk float?

The only problem with this idea might be longetivity. The proposed milk float has a range of 100 miles, and yet the typical F1 race has a distance of some 250 miles start to finish. So is Eccleston et al going to allow the massive sun panels that will be required to keep the car on the distance? Or will there be new pitstop regulations to allow drivers to change their horses midway thru the race?

Paris because for some reason I was thinking of mounting a horse when writing the above.

[tomjol]

Half the width...

Does anyone want to drive something half as wide as their current car? Really? Do you fancy getting two adults in the back in something half as wide as your current car?

[Dennis Healey]

Standards

Is that the the Imperial Shopping trolley or the metric shopping trolley? Standards are important to us Brits as we are going metric inch by inch.

[Andy 70]

no more iStuff please.

concept design, leccy car, yeah very good, welcome to the bandwagon, just quit it with the "i" prefix.

my only question is, how much of a mess will this make if i run over one with my normal sized car? mwahahahaha...

looks like electic powered street luge with two extra seats.