Lara Croft is a damn fine tomb raider and a great shot with those big guns, but it looks like she missed one — the Scarab.
This futuristic, single-passenger urban transporter is designer David Goncalves' answer to congested city streets and gridlocked highways. Yeah, it might look like something raised from hell in a Predator movie made 50 years from now, but Goncalves is to be commended for coming up with a cool concept that pushes the envelope on greener, self-driving vehicles.
The Scarab gets its power from one of three sources — battery, fuel cell or biofuel — so you can pick a fuel that's most readily available or most suits your needs. Such a feature could come in handy when dealing with our volatile energy market. Pick the battery option and you've got regenerative braking to help keep the battery charged.
But what makes this Lay-Z-Boy recliner with wheels really cool is its shape-shifting chassis.
As your speed increases, the rear wheels slide rearward, increasing the wheelbase and transferring the driver from an upright to a reclining position. This improves stability and aerodynamics, and therefore fuel efficiency (or battery range). Putter around town and the Scarab scrunches up, minimizing its footprint to relieve congestion.
The Scarab uses a whole swath of tech-savvy gizmos that require transponders embedded in the road to guide it along. In addition to radar and GPS, the gadgetry includes LIDAR, light detection and ranging, a tactile heads-up display and drive-by-wire controls. Although all this technology is readily available, it would cost a bundle to pack it all into a car, especially one like the Scarab. Goncalves says the vehicles could be privately owned or managed by a public agency — think of a municipal version of Zipcar. That would help keep costs down, but we're not sure how the idea of a city-managed vehicle fleet might fly.
There's no denying the Scarab is little more than a flight of fancy, a "What if ..." look into the future. Such a car would probably never be built — it's hard to see the Department of Transportation signing off on it, and then there's the issue of embedding all those transponders -- but you've gotta admit it sure looks cool. And zipping down the highway would be a lot like luging but without the Spandex.
POST UPDATED 12:10 p.m. PST Dec. 3.
Images by David Goncalves.
