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INTERVIEW

"I want 400 mph speed for everybody"

Extract from an Interview for the European Futurist Conference in Lucerne, given in November 2007

Dreams, cars and bionics – Dr.-Ing. Peter Maskus is the driving force behind one of the most revolutionary concepts regarding the automotive future, the Acabion GTBO. A speed-freaks dream come true.

The Acabion GTBO is quite something. How did you come up with this revolutionary concept?

The "mental preparation" took me 26 years of being a 100% automotive enthusiast. And the "breakthrough" came, when I had tested each end every Porsche Turbo after 4 years of being a Porsche engineer myself in Stuttgart Zuffenhausen. I asked myself: "And what now? Will this be it for the next 120 years?" And I literally "saw" that the answer is "definitely not": I want our grandchildren to go much faster, much more secure and above all much more efficient. I want 400 mph speed for everybody, and not 200 mph for a little, exclusive circle, and I want to have it solar powered.

What inspired you?

Watching seals along the Oregon pacific coast or seagulls gliding over wild ocean waves in a storm. That inspires me. If it is possible to "yawn pitifully", well, than a "super sports car" makes me yawn pitifully. An admiral butterfly in the gentle wind, crossing the Alps without breaking a single blossom, that is mere fascination. Bionics inspires me, and passion as well. Passion for the future, to make it bright for a mobile and peaceful humanity. To make the future bright we have to be bright. It is simple.

You critisize the current development of cars, which still is based on carriages of the 19th century. What is so wrong about that?

Well, carriages were beautiful. But there were never as many of them as we have cars today. And they did not burn up global resources. They were made for travel at low speeds. Cars as our "modern carriages" have huge engines now, with hundreds of "horsepowers". But lets us talk about facts: With a car we drive Lucerne-Hamburg and back in 16 hours and doing so we burn a bathtub of fuel (150 l / 40 gallons) for an average of 1.1 passengers. And we get home tired, if we get home at all. From these burned 150 liters, 1 liter was used for the passenger, and 149 liters for the "impressive 1.5 ton car". This is a fact. And if we take an "SUV" we can burn even two bathtubs, again for 1 liter of effective human mobility. That's what's wrong: We burn "bathtubs of fuel" for getting almost no mobility. Mass-enthusiasm is not always enthusiasm about the right thing. History showed this, and today is no different: Cars are heavy and inefficient in such an insane way. It's like a refrigerator without any insulation. But in the case of cars the "refrigerator industry" is powerful and has even psychologists and PR professionals on its huge payrole to make us all believe, these "refrigerators" are just fine. And since no fridge-maker offers an insulated fridge, we can not compare, and so we believe it. We believe it since 120 years. It is a true disaster! Mankind leads wars to get energy to uselessly "burn it in the bathtub" for their non-insulated fridges. It is totally insane.

Is building hybrid-engines and more fuel efficient motors the way of the future?

A "hybrid drive non-insulated fridge" makes as little sense as a "hydrogene fuel cell airplane with a parachute permanently fixed at its tail". Insulation makes sense, and building "airplanes without parachutes" does. And if we insulated the fridge, we will find out that it is so unbelievably efficient now, that we can operate it on pure solar electricity. The electric Acabion will be as beautiful as the best of all classic Bugattis ever were, and it will give a revival to what Ettore Bugatti himself had in mind: Ultimately sophisticated solutions by concentrating on what is needed and on what is effective. Hence the Acabion E will go 420 km/h at a power setting of 46 KW or 250 km/h at a power setting of 9 KW. This is almost unbelievable. But it is anyhow true. It is physics! This happens when you "insulate the fridge" or "remove the airplane's parachute".

How important is Bionics for your work?

To make it work, in the past ten years we defined our own principles of applied bionics here at Acabion research in Lucerne. We did that to really use it and to really apply it into consequent bionic high tech. It defines us. With getting to know and to structure bionics, we turned engineering upside down, and after we did that, we found, that we actually had turned it downside up.