True. Maybe a mechanical arm to hook the bumper on the other car. It would just be very efficient drafting.
That’ll never work! Haven’t you seen a Newton’s Cradle in action?
Only the first car in line will move!
I have an old single panel comic that proposed cars hook up to the next car ahead using those snap together ball and socket joints like toys have. The first car hooks up to a truck, and everybody rides in a chain. When you get to your destination, you just uncouple. pop!
I never understood why that didn’t become popular…
I worked on a project several years ago to build this car per DaVinci’s design. I thought the article would have pasted with the pic. It is a self propelled car.
Physics nitpick: it’ll hit the car in front of it, which will hit the car in front of it, and so on. Only the front car will move. And if it’s going uphill, it’ll go forward a few feet, then roll back down, hitting the line of cars and making the one in back pop off the line and move backward. If THAT’s also uphill, the process will repeat indefinitely, with a series of sharp yet soothing clicking noises.
The solution is clearly for the LEAD car to back up, pushing all the others back, winding up all their springs. Then when the light goes green, they all go. It’s like, free energy, man.
If only that were so…
It’s all way to complicated. Just have all the roads run downhill.
It used to be like that. Just ask my father, who lived at the bottom of the road and had to walk in snow throughout the year.