Runabout

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15 months ago I outlined a small vehicle concept that has been very much on my mind over the past couple of days.  No, sorry, I still don't have an image of the Tellurian Runabout to share -- but I do have this shot of a Polaris Ranger (cropped from a screenshot of the Polaris website):

I'd like to use those rims, and the image gives you a rough idea of how small this vehicle is to be.  Just imagine a trapezoidal frame -- of square steel tubing -- extending out past the wheels, and mirror-tinted windows filling in the spaces...

The Runabout has no body to speak of -- it's all greenhouse and exoframe above the wheels and black bedliner-coated 'tub'...  William Towns' Microdot will help you visualize...

Speaking of visualization, I've perhaps been concentrating on this concept (which I see as the logical first Tellurian Motors offering) because I recently watched The Secret.  I see myself with sudden money, able to afford to convert my '81 Cressida to electric while I order a Westfield XI kit (to build as an EV), pay off previous debts, find some suitable real estate, and get to building the first Tellurian Motors vehicle -- a Runabout.

TELLURIAN MOTORS

vehicles for Planet Earth and beyond

The Runabout makes sense as a first because of its relative simplicity -- not to mention its otherworldly, even post-apocalyptic appearance.  It should make a splash and make people ask what's next.  Plus, well, it is to be an electric vehicle that meets a lot of drivers' daily demands -- traversing less than 100 miles in a day alone or with one passenger, with little cargo, at speeds which do not exceed 25 miles per hour (making it registerable as a Low Speed Vehicle, or 'LSV').

The way I imagine it, it could certainly exceed 25, and an owner could enter a 'cheat' into its central processor to disable the limiter -- or simply select an 'off-road' mode...

And, hey, it would be attractive to some buyers as simply an electric UTV...

You know what?  I really don't care how marketable the Tellurian Runabout -- or any of my other concepts -- may be.  I just want to create, and as a lifelong automotive enthusiast and amateur automotive designer I see a niche for every vehicle I conceptualize.  Much more than that, I'd just like to be able to drive the things I dream up.  Automotive design, to me, is the ultimate in 'performance art'.

Deal with it.

Phil Smith

December 2, 2008

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