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"Driving without hands"
It's not the first idea to offer people a comfortable way to get from A TO B and it won't be the last one either. But the minirapid, made by the german engineer Willi Eichholz IS a fun one.
Eichholz wants to expand the 'reachability'(don't know if that word exists :D) of cities by building leviated driving lanes and let small electric car's drive over those. The engineer thinks it's a lot cheaper to build a rail on which around 5000 Smarts or Lupo's can drive around completely computer steered. This is made possible by two 'lasereyes' that 'feel' the tracks, and a 'contact'(can't find a better word) to link the electro motor
with the powernet.
Eichholz is especially starting his attack at TRANSRAPID, a Magnetic levitated train that possibly will start to drive between Düsseldorf and Dortmund. In an interview with the german magazine PM Eichholz says: "My computercabs will only cost one fifth of the 4,8 billion euro's that the transrapid is offered to develop. It's also a lot speedier." According to Eichholz the cabs can simply continue to drive whilst the Transrapid on the 80 kilometer's long road has to stop 5 times. With a max speed of 400 km/h (not miles an hour like in TTD - GW) the Transrapid is quick, but it wastes a lot of times at the stops. Eichholz' idea is being looked at by the German minister of trafic.
SOURCES: www.computer-taxi-bahn.de , PM Magazine
I SURE HOPE NOT!!!