An electric powered car … that swims!
Three electric motors are located in
the rear compartment of the Rinspeed “sQuba”. One provides propulsion on land,
the other two drive the screws for underwater motoring. Image Credit:
Rinspeed
That’s right, a “green” car that can go into and tool
around in the blue!
The “sQuba” by Rinspeed, is to be introduced to the
world at the upcoming Geneva Motor Show (March 6th - 16th, 2008) in Geneva,
Switzerland. With this introduction comes the first, ever, car that can actually
fly under water.
You drive the car into the water and
the car floats. That is, until you crack the door to let the water in.
Immediately the “sQuba” starts on his way to the underwater world. The
occupants’ breathing air comes from an integrated tank of compressed air that
divers know from scuba diving. Image Credit: Rinspeed
Growing up,
we all remember going to the movies to watch James Bond take off from a pier,
into the water in order to investigate the hijacking of submarines carrying
nuclear warheads, in “The Spy Who Loved Me.” Problem was is that this concept
car in the 1977 film never existed … movie tricks!
With the introduction
of the Rinspeed “sQuba,” the world’s first real submersible car, the movie
fakery now becomes reality.
This excerpted from the Rinspeed website
-
Thirty years after the movie thriller
‘The Spy Who Loved Me’ hit the silver screen “sQuba” is the first car that can
actually ‘fly’ under water.
“Dive it again,
James!” If the situation gets too hot for the secret agent he’ll go underground
- or under water. So demonstrated impressively by Roger Moore in ‘The Spy Who
Loved Me” in 1977 when he dove below the waves in a sleek vehicle that moments
before seemed to be an ordinary car.
—-
The scene never really took
place; it was an animation.
—-
Rinspeed boss Frank M. Rinderknecht (52)
is known for his extraordinary automotive creations. The acknowledged James Bond
enthusiast and Swiss automobile visionary kept revisiting this scene in his mind
over and over: “For three decades I have tried to imagine how it might be
possible to build a car that can fly under water. Now we have made this dream
come true.”
Levers help to steer the “sQuba” when
it is underway, underwater. Image Credit: Rinspeed
And it is
this submerged stabile flight at a depth of 10 meters that sets the “sQuba”
apart from military vehicles. While the latter can go under water, they are
limited to driving slowly over the submerged ground. Rinderknecht: “It is
undoubtedly not an easy task to make a car watertight and pressure resistant
enough to be maneuverable under water. The real challenge however was to create
a submersible car that moves like a fish in water.”
It also had to be a
sports car that was converted into a diving dream in the facilities of Swiss
engineering specialist Esoro.
In a first step the combustion engine was
removed and replaced by several electric motors. Three motors are located in the
rear. One provides propulsion on land, the other two drive the screws for
underwater motoring. They are supported by two powerful Seabob jet drives in the
front, which ‘breathe’ through special rotating louvers from HS Genion (for
opening and closing the water intake). The rotating outlet jets were designed to
be extremely light yet twist resistant by using high-tech nano materials,
so-called Carbon Nano Tubes.
