Really See the Country
Speed is overrated. Sleep is not.
Rest and see sights in autonomous 400 MPGe SUV Sleeper Cars
You’ve got two weeks to take a vacation …
Go car camping with the family. Sleep. Stargaze through a skylight.
Stop in parks, towns, and cities.
Travel up to 800 miles between sunset and sunrise. Loop around Lower 48. Give the kids their own sleeper car. Travel 10,000 car miles on one-tenth as much energy, and half the ticket price, of four roundtrip cross-country airplane seats.
Business Trip ?
Sometimes, you just have to be there in person. On business up to 500 miles, leave the night before, sleep in your personal rolling cocoon, hit a McShower, and be ready by 8. It beats rush hour traffic or spending 3 hours flying there, right? If you want to be home for dinner, rent a sleeper car to tour that site in the morning and then fly home.
“Why doesn’t America have High Speed Rail ?
Japan does. Europe does. China does.
What’s wrong with us ?”
Trains are big, comfortable and wonderful but they are expensive to run unless lots of people use them. Tokyo to Osaka runs on fares alone but that’s rare. Most riders are privileged, and heavily subsidized.
America has an outstanding network of highways. Upgrading it with electrification will be cheaper than equipping cars with big batteries. Adding a rail will allow cars to be “dual-mode” and achieve 500 MPGe, triple that of electric cars with rubber tires only.
The reduction in energy costs will pay for the tolls which will pay for the upgrades..
WHY ELECTRIC ROADTRAINS ?
Awesome Value
Roadtrains will allow 4-7X lanes of car traffic in just one lane. This is tremendously cost-effective. It reduces congestion and decreases the need to pave and repave.
Electrified inner lanes substitute for public charging stations and eliminate stopping to charge. Best of all, all-electric cars can go between and within metro areas with lightweight, inexpensive batteries. This sharply reduces their cost. It also greatly reduces their weight and, consequently, their rolling resistance on rubber tires.
A single steel rail allows roadtrain cars to retract the front tires and settle down onto a steel wheel. With one-tenth as much rolling resistance, this will provide a strikingly smooth, quiet, and very energy-efficient ride. With aerodynamically optimized cars, the energy efficiency of today’s electric cars, the least CO2 emitting and most inexpensive to fuel, will triple.
Reducing car purchase and operating costs will pay for upgrading the highways. And much more.