Political Cortex: Brain Food for the Body Politic

A project so cool, I almost hate to show it to you, because you might get in line in front of me, and then I'd have to hate you.  On the other hand, getting the cost of this new love down to the range where I can actually afford it requires that I not be the only one waiting by the docks this time.  So here you go.  Meet the Carver.

The first thing you're likely to notice is that the Carver isn't really a car.  It's got three wheels, making it legally a motorcycle.  However, it's unlike any motorcycle you've ever seen.  It's really a whole new class of vehicle, a true new-thing-under-the-sun.  

What makes it so great?  Isn't this three wheeled thing a little unpolished?  Even a little, well, funny-looking?   I can't even express the Carver's coolness in words.  You have to watch the movies.  Go on.  I'll wait.

Top Gear	Cycle or Car?	Carver in Monaco

If you've watched the movies (and if you haven't go back now), you've seen the neatness of the Carver's engineering trick.  The coordinated hydraulic system allows the Carver to tilt at astounding angles while maintaining stability, making this a nimble, light vehicle that combines a car's enclosure (and safety) with a motorcycle's maneuverability.  It's really nothing like the clumsy three wheelers that have come before it.

All right, so it's cool.  So it's a nifty bit of techno-gimmickry.  What makes it worthy of being blogged here -- not exactly the central spot for all things automotive.

First off, the calls I've made in previous diaries were often for something exactly like the Carver -- something light.  The biggest problem with our current crop of vehicles is that they're as overweight as I am.  They're bloated road-going dinosaurs that often take more than a ton of vehicle per passenger inside.  Why do people shake their fist at those zipping past in the HOV lane?  Because they are alone in their car.  90% of all trips are solo, and yet they're made in lumbering vehicles that seat four, or five, or seven.  That's a big part of why the average car in America gets only 21 MPG.

With no real gimmicks in the engine compartment, the light weight and small engine of the Carver is enough to more than double that, with a mileage of 43 MPG.  You can buy a Carver today (okay, delivery isn't until January, but Carver North America will be only too happy to accept your deposit right now).  One word of warning: it's pricey.  The Carver is essentially a hand-built vehicle, and the current price tag is $40K and up.

If you're thinking 43MPG isn't all that great for a blinged up motorcycle, and $40K is out of your ballpark, don't worry.  It only gets better from here.

The technology behind the Carver has captured the hearts of folks far more influential than myself, including a couple of well-known southern California design firms. Venture Vehicles hopes to have a hybrid version of the Carver on the road by early 2008, a mass-produced version, with the new designer skin over the cool Carver tech.  The hybrid version is expected to maintain the current version's performance, while doubling its fuel efficiency, and it's not just a hybrid, it's a flex-fuel hybrid, capable of burning ethanol as well as gasoline.  So what would that look like?  Something like this:

If that doesn't move you, you need to turn in your geek papers right now.  Venture Vehicles is projecting a price of only $16K for the production version of this car, er, bike, um Carver.  If they can do that, I expect to be dogfighting with a lot of these bad boys on my daily commute.

(My thanks to Ian Banks at Venture Vehicles for pointing me at the hybrid version of the Carver.)