HumanCar Reminds Us Of The Flintstones, Hardly The Way Of The Future
The Flintstones started off in 1960 and portrayed life in the Stone Age where cars were simply powered by your feet. The jokes are plentiful and anyone that’s ever done a swap on a car or gutted one out has sure to step inside their engine bay and pretend to run in order to power their vehicle by their legs. So how is it that a television show about the past actually relates to a car of the future?
The HumanCar Imagine PS is the product of U.S. engineer Charles Greenwood. The vehicle is powered by up to four hand cranks and the lucky drivers and passengers power the wheels by pulling and pushing the levers. So sure, it’s not quite holes in the floorboard a la Flintstones-style, but this really isn’t much different.
HumanCar reports that the vehicle can be powered by one or two people and can be turned into a hybrid so it can just be… like a normal car? We’re not really sure where this is going, but we could see it perhaps being a fun sport to watch, but an actual car on the road? C’mon now – where’s the cars we envisioned that would drive themselves? Not the ones that take more manual labor to operate.
[Source: CNet News]
Jason Siu began his career in automotive journalism in 2003 with Modified Magazine, a property previously held by VerticalScope. As the West Coast Editor, he played a pivotal role while also extending his expertise to Modified Luxury & Exotics and Modified Mustangs. Beyond his editorial work, Jason authored two notable Cartech books. His tenure at AutoGuide.com saw him immersed in the daily news cycle, yet his passion for hands-on evaluation led him to focus on testing and product reviews, offering well-rounded recommendations to AutoGuide readers. Currently, as the Content Director for VerticalScope, Jason spearheads the content strategy for an array of online publications, a role that has him at the helm of ensuring quality and consistency across the board.
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Hi Chuck, My apologies on behalf of AutoGuide for even having the audacity to speak our opinion on your project by referencing one of America's favorite namesakes. But it appears that we aren't the only ones that share the same sentiments and thoughts, as a quick search revealed plenty of pages that reference HumanCar to The Flintstones. By all means do I personally applaud you for the project - I think it's great. But please realize from an editorial point-of-view, there's nothing else that strikes up a conversation than the idea of a vehicle that requires more manual labor than pushing a gas pedal to move. http://depletedcranium.com/the-humancar-2011-and-why-its-not-the-future/ http://www.moonbattery.com/archives/2010/03/moonbat-tech-th-4.html http://www.grist.org/article/2010-08-17-fred-flintstone-wants-car-so-should-you/
Thanks for the reply, indeed in many languages the Bedrock analogy is used- that's fine, in fact from a psychological perspective it's the 'vehicle' to getting the permanent impression to stick like velcro in memory. From a branding perspective that's worth a zillion dollars to a start-up company. The cranium thread misses points of national security tied into resource dependence (ask James Woolsey about HC) so kind of kicks itself out of serious discussion threads. We have a film crew on site from Germany tomorrow and will be able to break out much of the hard science behind the project there. We will document the crew documenting us and make this video available. We'd be happy to ping you ( AUTOGUIDE ) as one of the first to get the link. Thanks Jason, CSG We encourage q's on this thread.