Came across this today via Twitter via Gizmag. It's a blue-sky concept for a sail boat / airship! Technicalities and feasibilities aside - I think it looks brilliant and i particularly like his sketch work. Original Gizmag article by Noel McKeegan: A boat that flies. Now there's a vehicle Phileas Fogg could really have used. Zep'lin is a blue-sky concept developed by industrial designer Damien Grossemy during a five month internship at Renault which imagines the use of solar panel sails and electric propulsion to liberate the yacht-like vehicle from terra firma. Setting out to "explore new design language of electric vehicles," Grossemy has come up with a land anywhere vertical architecture that incorporates a propeller drive, flexible wing and rudder system that would enable the craft to tilt sideways to make the most of the Sun's rays. Beautiful, elegant design? Yes. Workable? We live in hope!
Beautiful. A couple of years ago a student from ISD had made a Renault 'truck' to carry hydrogen (or the fuel of the future) from China to France over rough terrain. A closer to real form factor, but visualized and animated beautifully. It is nice to see corporates, even if they are otherwise very conservative, look at stretching the boundaries of their (and our) imagination.
