Plastic Cars - Can they survive the first scrape?
Now I realize that its not being offered in the United States Auto Marketplace yet, but the new super cheap ($2500?) Ratan Tata mini car being sold in India is a great place to touch on an intriguing question. Are we designing all of the give out of our cars?
The Tata is a plastic car, held together by adhesive. Basically its like the little model cars you built as a kid with a testors glue kit. Only its a little bigger, has a 4 stroke engine and hasn’t made it to America yet. My question is, how will it survive its first accident? In the old days of sheet metal cars and solid bumpers, it just took a little bondo and elbow grease to erase the nasty effects of a slight bumper mishap. Todays delicate and inflexible cars seem to lose whole body panels and complicated bumper units in the simplest little bumps and dings.
The typical “backed into a pole” ding today can cost upwards of 2500 to repair. Certainly a painful surprise and an upward force on all of our auto insurance rates.
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