Well, I’ve been designing cars in my mind for years…and it strikes me that I have a design that is potentially better than anything Detroit, Stuittgart, or Japan puts out…here’s the details:
-power plant: diesel-electric hybrid, with full electric capability
-style: wagon, sedan, SUV -the design is modular, so any type of vehicle can be made by bolting together the appropriate modules
-[erformance: my car shopuld get 55-75 MPG, with performance better than any vehicle now available
-body: outer shell is hi-impact plastic: no dents, scratches, etc. or rusting!
-servicability: the power module (engine, electric motor and battery pack) are combined in a module. This can be removed and replaced in the vehicle in 15 minutes
Now that I have the design, all I need to do is:
-secure financing (I’ll need aroud $3,500,000,000.00
-buy or lease a factory
-hire engineers, assemblers, etc.
-sign on franchisees, arrange for foreign distribution
There…that should do it…are any of you interested in investing? I am aware that the track record of entrepreneurs in this issm’t the best (John DeLorean comes to mind), but tis design can’t fail!
Any of your Irish dopers…thing the Govt. of Norther Ireland would take a flyer with me? (
What, you’re gonna copy Hypercar?
Without a Proof of Concept vehicle, you’re going to have a devil of a time raising the money (and no matter what you estimate that it’ll cost to build the car, your estimate will be wrong). Without a POC, your best bet is to try and secure government funding. Not easy, you’ve got to have something on paper that an engineer can look at and say will work. Plus, with government funding, you run the risk of having the government suddenly pull the plug on your money supply.
The cheapest way for you to do what you want to do is the following:
1.) Design and build a version of the powerplant that can easily be dropped into a currently produced automobile and provides close to the same level of performance that the original engine did.
2.) Sell kit cars built around your premise. This get’s you around the various crash test regulations and other things that are prohibitive to the start up of a new car company. Also, it ensures that your test models (which is really what these are), are in the hands of mechanically skilled people (in theory, anyway), who’ll be able to provide you real world test data.
3.) Assuming you’ve accomplished steps one and two and have managed to become profitable, you can then start producing high performance luxury vehicles. These you can sell at a fat profit, and that will help you raise the money you need to start mass producing vehicles the rest of us can afford to buy. Assuming the other car companies don’t try to force you out of business or buy your company up and take it over.
Watch Tucker: The Man and His Dream for some ideas of how a great idea can go wrong.