Sponsored: Autopia: Flying cars, moonbikes and utility wheels
If the entrepreneurs at MACA get what they’re hoping for, motorsports enthusiasts may soon be watching racing featuring a Flying Formula 1 Car. The fast and futuristic-looking vehicle is called a “Carcopter.”
It could change motorsports forever, or so its creators believe.
Much different but the same, Nicolas Muron, founder and CEO of Moonbikes, believes his electric snow bikes will be a new way to travel on snowmobile trails and on private land.
And then there’s Zach Clayton, a brand manager from Cake. He espouses the utilitarian strengths of the Swedish company’s new line of motorbikes built for mobile workforces — industrial building foremen to anti-poaching bush patrols in South Africa.
The three new vehicles were featured at the recent Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas.
With the slogan, “Future is in the Air,” MACA (www.macaflight.com), still a prototype, is an aerodynamic speed machine its aviation brain trust hopes will become the first (manned) flying hydrogen Formula 1 car. It’s billed with a top speed of 153 miles per hour.
Thierry de Boisvilliers, a former fighter pilot from France, and former Airbus executive Michael Krollak are the creators of the hydrogen-powered racer. They hope by 2023 races will be held by drivers in the lightweight, twin helicopter-blade vehicles hovering around tracks.
The pending idea is an effort to reduce the carbon emissions produced by traditional combustion engines.
“We developed this because we really want to go faster using this technology and using hydrogen,” said de Boisvilliers. “The vehicle is seven meters (23 feet) long and there’s one pilot on board. We will fly the first one by the end of 2022. We are doing all of the environmental appraisings and we are developing the race concept.”
Muron, self-described as a “motor and tech lover,” believes winter recreation enthusiasts needed another transportation mode. The Moonbike lineup (www.moonbikes.com) was developed during the winter of 2015. The inventor was visiting his grandparents’ home in the small village of Saint-Nicolas-de-Véroce in the French Alps.
Snowmobiles, Muron thought, were too noisy and emitted too much pollution. His Moonbike idea, a “silent sled,” was born.
“I am a motor and tech lover,” said Muron, a native in France whose company is headquartered in Boulder, Colo. “I realized that in the summer we have so many ways to move around, with bikes and e-bikes. But in the winter we only have cars and similar, which are heavy, polluting and noisy. I wanted to use my skills as an aerospace engineer to invent a new kind of machine to explore the snowy environment.”
For Cake, the Makka and high-performance Kalk AP motorbikes are versatile motorcycles without being a motorcycle, says the company.
“We are a forward-thinking brand; we realize the world is changing,” said Clayton. “We don’t want two wheels to hinder where you can go or what you can bring.”
The Makka has a 28 mph limit (the maximum legal speed of throttle-assist e-bikes in the U.S.). In most states, it translates into not needing a motorcycle license. Further, the Makka is about 50 pounds heavier than the average lightweight cargo e-bike but about less than half the weight of an average-sized motorcycle.
“We like to keep the bike at about 150 pounds, give or take,” Clayton said. “We manufacture everything from the ground up. This is our take on a motorbike, essentially. At the end of the day, we want to help speed up the world toward a zero-emission society.”
Off-road or otherwise additionally rugged circumstances are where Cake bikes (www.ridecake.com) thrive. They have a raked fork, knobby, three-inch-wide tires and a short-travel suspension. The Makka handles like a mountain bike. The step-through frame fits nearly any rider via an adjustable saddle height.
James Raia, a syndicated columnist in Sacramento, publishes a free weekly automotive podcast and electronic newsletter. Sign-ups are available on his website, theweeklydriver.com. He can be reached via email: james@jamesraia.com.