Last Year to celebrate the 100th aniversary of Cadillac a Thorium atomic powered concept car was designed to allow 100 years between fuelings, oil changes and tire replacements to make it an essentially maintenance free car. This Cadillac became the worlds second atomic powered concept car with the first being the 1958 Ford Nucleon.
I have for some time pondered the feasability of an atomic powered car however I have imagined that the only workable design would be based on the movie 2001 where the car would be seventy foot long, have a spherical passenger cabin to minimize radiation followed by an articulating robotic snake like spine with the power plant at the rear which would represent ground zero. Equipped with wheels like a centipede it could negotiate the toughest turns, and lets not forget the fins to dissipate heat and radiation. Although the safest design possible it turns out also to be the scariest design because people will wonder why such elaborate measures have to be taken in order to sheild people from radiation if radiation is so safe.
I'll praise the car. Of course with safety features like airbag type for passenger & reactor and safe instant shutdown of reactor in event of high velocity collision.
I took a look at it, and I have to admit: they have come up with something that would be a comfortable looking ride, for an E.T.
Truthfully though, if that thing has a fission plant in it, there can't be much in the way of shielding. No details are given about the power train. And I'll bet money that they never actually fueled the thing for a test drive either.
The atomic Cadillac was designed by an artist rather than a nuclear engineer. It seems that the powertrain consists of electric motors to drive the 24 wheels. The problem is that the design seems to be based on a conventional gasoline powered sports car like a Ferrari rather than an atomic car or atomic truck. First of all I would not want a nuclear reactor in the back seat of my sports car but rather as far away from the passenger compartment as possible. Also the paridgm of the light weight sports car and the bicycle like tires needs to change. Real atomic cars would be extremely heavy and would be made out of steel and lead. So the old joke of the Battlelac would be fitting but because atomic power is millions of times more fuel efficient sowho cares about the weight?
Since this is just a concept design the cost is unknown. However the IRS allows a 50 cent per mile tax deduction for operating a car as a business expense. So assuming the car lasts 100 years and at a rate of 15,000 miles a year we end up putting 1.5 million miles on the odometer we have a budget of $750,000 or $625 a month for the total cost of operating the car. Also the car can double up as a power generator for the home because solar panels do not work at night.
