The future promised us flying cars and jetpacks, which we still have to live without. However, while not flying, a collaboration between MIT and Lamborghini produced an impressive hypercar concept for the electric sports car of the future that is self-healing.
Terzo Millenio, as the car is called, is an automobile prototype for the third millennium. It has the unique ability to deliver high peak power and regenerate kinetic energy, all the while ensuring the ability to release and harvest electric power. The car aims to be self-healing, which may seem far-fetched, but this technology is “as attainable as it is visionary”, according to MIT.
The aim is to reduce weight and to increase the availability of electric energy in the car, using structural electric energy storing composites as a rechargeable battery. The target is to improve nanomaterial technology.
At the same time, the project aims to combine the technology to monitor continuously the whole carbon fibre structure, both visible and invisible, with the concept of health-monitoring: the goal is to provide for the Terzo Millennio the ability to conduct its own health-monitoring. It should be able to detect cracks and damages that might occur after accident, throughout its substructure, while limiting or reducing to zero the risks correlated to the presence and propagation of cracks in the carbon fibre structure.
Lamborghini is relying on MIT to make its cars of the future operate on electricity, while maintaining the aesthetic standards and high-powered mechanical elements that the current cars have.
A prototype of the car is on display for the MIT community. Read more about it here.
Photos: Emrick Elias