Rise of the Inflatable Car

By Andrew Impey

Cars of the future will be affordable, efficient and customers will be able to order them online. Nothing astounding there you might think, but what if I told you they will be inflatable and capable of travelling 2,500 miles on a single charge.

It sounds more like a Hollywood blockbuster set in the year 2059, than a discussion of technological innovation, but the San Francisco-based company XP Vehicles is very serious about its latest product which they claim will provide a solution to the global oil crisis.

Having ordered your car online, it will be shipped to you in two cardboard boxes where you will assemble it at home. According to the company, “Two adults with a high school education should be able to unpack and inflate the car in less than two hours.” Slightly worrying, given that my “simple to assemble” Ikea wardrobe is still on my bedroom floor in pieces some six months after it was first bought.

Just when you thought the boasting from XP couldn’t get any more far-fetched, the cars also have the added advantage of being able to be driven off a cliff without serious injury and the capability to float in the event of flood or tsunami.

But surely they’ll just burst? Well, actually no they won’t. Not only are they constructed out of the same polymer materials used to cushion NASA's rovers when they landed on Mars; multiple chambers will protect the vehicle from just popping like a balloon.

Ludicrous as they might sound, these cars may well be the future of driving as we know it. At around $10,000, these vehicles should be in production by 2010 so don’t be surprised if a miniature bouncy castle on wheels overtakes you on the motorway in a few years time.

And for those sceptics out there, remember what people said about the car in the first place - "The horse is here to stay, but the automobile is only a novelty - a fad." Top advice there from a president of the Michigan Savings Bank to Henry Ford's lawyer Horace Rackham. Rackham ignored the advice and invested $5000 in Ford stock, selling it later for $12.5 million.

Images: www.xpcarteam.com

For more inventions they said would "never work" click here.

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