China's new electric "straddling bus"

spinningmagnets

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I think this is a clever option. It looks a little slow, but when there is a traffic jam, it just keeps chuggin along. Cheaper than building an elevated mono rail. The positive and negative leads (steel wheels?) are widely spread. The graphic looks like CGI, but the youtube in the link seems real.

http://www.citylab.com/tech/2016/05...raddling-bus-finally-become-a-reality/483953/

shenzhen-huashi-future-parking-equipment_2-en-ww.jpg
 
Cool idea. Bus or tram?

Either way, major improvement on the trams here, which everyone including cyclists and motor vehicles, must stop for!

Wonder what happens when there is a crash underneath...
 
How about moving covered sidewalks everywhere instead!
 
spinningmagnets said:
The graphic looks like CGI, but the youtube in the link seems real.
It's a scale model. if you look at the trees and "grass" and reflections and such the scale shows as pretty small (same way that stuff in UFO and Thunderbirds and stuff like that, despite looking quite real in some cases, still wasn't quite "right" to the eye).

The still image stuff is definitely CGI, probably overlaid on a real photo. Can tell easily from the "glow" of various surfaces, which is commonly used to emulate various indirect lighting reflections when CPU time or rendering time is too valuable to waste on realistic lighting simulation.
 
Door-to-door self driving vehicles using existing infrastructure seem more likely.

Abstract: Bicycling can be promoted by proper infrastructure design. However, much of the urban
developed world is burdened by decades of automobile-based design. Changing the infrastructure is a
major undertaking. A more realistic approach may be to change the bicycle.
http://www.enviroteach.com/Self-Drive_Trike.pdf
 
Awesome idea, but what about big rigs, it would need to be higher ~14' then there is moving all the utility lines higher, and changing poles. Its probably too wild for North America to build and for society to accept.
 
lester12483 said:
That would never work in the USA. Too many crazy drivers would run into it.

And controlling traffic to prevent trucks from ever getting on those dedicated highways would be quite a trick. The whole thing does look pretty workable from this veiwpoint though;

Straddling bus model.jpg

I like the "hoovering up cars" image. The only problem I see is that the cars still come out the back end. :(

Once self-driving cars are the law, people will be completely bored of car ownership. There will be so much demand for high speed comfy buses in dedicated lanes that cars will become the exclusive domain of Jay Leno. Jay will collect one each of everything worth collecting and all the others will be recycled into buses.
 
It looks like the Chinese can be as American as anybody, at least in terms of their business methods:

http://fortune.com/2017/07/04/straddling-bus-arrests-investment-scam
 
Chalo said:
It looks like the Chinese can be as American as anybody, at least in terms of their business methods:

http://fortune.com/2017/07/04/straddling-bus-arrests-investment-scam

They do not frock around, taint some babies drink with toxic shit, Execs die.
 
It's incredible how many people were fooled by such a terrible idea on so many 'levels', I bet it would look cool driving on some solar frickin' roadways though.
 
kiwiev said:
Yeah what ever happened to solar pavment roadways its a great concept but I guess like all great ideas they need $$$

Cheers Kiwi
Another scam, basically. LEDs not visible in daylight, barely produced any power due to the thick glass and inefficient positioning... They eventually built a small installation somewhere and it kept breaking down and produced something like a dollar of electricity in total. Over-promised vaporware that they bilked people and the government out of millions for. Like all good fundraising scams, it sounds great until you start looking at the details.
 
kiwiev said:
Yeah what ever happened to solar pavment roadways its a great concept but I guess like all great ideas they need $$$
Didn't work. Problems like heavy people, dirt and water combined to make it impractical.

If you want to use roadways to generate power, put solar canopies over them. The hardware exists right now, it's easy to maintain, and it promotes safety (keep sun glare, rain, snow and ice off roads.)
 
billvon said:
kiwiev said:
Yeah what ever happened to solar pavment roadways its a great concept but I guess like all great ideas they need $$$
Didn't work. Problems like heavy people, dirt and water combined to make it impractical.

If you want to use roadways to generate power, put solar canopies over them. The hardware exists right now, it's easy to maintain, and it promotes safety (keep sun glare, rain, snow and ice off roads.)

Great idea, I wish they would do it here on shopping mall carparks would be great in the summer and few plug in points wouldn't go astray either.

Cheers Kiwif
 
kiwiev said:
If you want to use roadways to generate power, put solar canopies over them.

Great idea, I wish they would do it here on shopping mall carparks would be great in the summer and few plug in points wouldn't go astray either.

Several places around here have the panel canopies--a couple of walmarts, a school or two, some of the bus / rail transit stations, etc. I think some are beginning to put in plugins too, but there's usually only one, sometimes two.
 
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