GMC has provide you with an answer to the rising costs of fuel and rent -- the GMC PAD. Created for the California Design Problem, the PAD is a cellular city loft intended to ease the difficulties of dwelling in Southern California. The way forward for 5 Step Formula Motor Properties. See more photos of concept vehicles. Instead of renting from a landlord and paying the typically sky-excessive SoCal rent rates, the proprietor of a PAD simply lives in it, and makes his home wherever he happens to be parked. To get to work, the PAD owner simply parks his "cell city loft" close to the office and walks, avoiding the necessity of commuting on clogged highways. Better nonetheless, he can use the PAD's on-board know-how to work directly from throughout the PAD itself. The PAD is a high-tech motor home made for living in full-time, not just for weekend journeys. It's packed with the newest communications equipment and amenities, which is why GMC calls it a Residing Exercise Automobile, or LAV.

The GMC PAD doesn't really exist, 5 Step Formula however. Common Motors' Advanced Design Crew created it for the California Design Challenge, a contest held on the 2006 Los Angeles Auto Show. The theme for the challenge was "An L.A. Journey." Ten different companies, together with Hyundai, Scion, Maybach, Mercedes-Benz and Audi, came up with concepts to replicate the large number of activities available in Southern California. A panel of design experts gave first place to the GMC PAD. Statistics about the PAD are exhausting to come by, since it solely exists as a computer design. It is comparable in measurement to a trendy motor house -- in actual fact, it's in all probability shorter than a few of the massive motor houses available on the market. It looks very vast, however for practical functions, it cannot be any wider than a standard site visitors lane. Specific weight numbers are usually not accessible, although it could likely be comparable to a regular motor house.

A 25-foot motor house weighs about 10,000 lbs. 300-horsepower engine. Area-age materials similar to composites could reduce the weight, but the load of the communications tools may compensate for that financial savings. The PAD consists of DirecTV, OnStar and XM Satellite WiFi. That means users would have constant entry to greater than a hundred Tv channels, high-velocity wireless Internet, and quite a lot of OnStar companies, including vehicle diagnostics, emergency assistance, and visitors, journey and weather information. You wouldn't have to work very laborious to find that data, either. The inside partitions of the PAD are covered with large LCD screens. To keep every thing operating smoothly, GMC says that the PAD has "a teraflop of on-board memory." This does not make much sense, since a teraflop is a measure of computational speed fairly than reminiscence capability. Maybe the PAD has on-board laptop techniques that may run at one teraflop. Or they could have meant "terabyte." On the other hand, maybe the PAD could make the Kessel Run in beneath 12 parsecs, too.

If kicking back and watching a DVD on a large LCD display screen isn't enjoyable sufficient, the aft portion of the PAD is a "private spa." This features a kitchen space with a "full suite of PAD-particular appliances created by Thermador," and different options created by Kohler. Whether this features a working shower and bathroom isn't indicated, but we are able to assume they're there. Saving on a monthly rent cost is not any big help if you are stuck paying hundreds of dollars for gas each week. For that purpose, PAD was designed to function effectively with the most recent energy technologies. A Diesel-Electric hybrid engine powers the PAD in each LiveMode and DriveMode. A completely computerized resource management system permits the PAD to wring every final drop out of fuel and potable water provides, with the projected time between refills lasting weeks or months. To supplement vitality calls for, six square meters of photovoltaic cells cover the highest of the PAD, charging on-board batteries with vitality collected from the solar.

The computer systems also management the suspension, giving the PAD a easy, simple income method journey and leveling it out routinely in LiveMode. As a result of the PAD was created purely as a design venture, it is not necessarily meant to be a sensible vehicle. GMC has absolutely no plans to provide a prototype PAD, a lot much less a production version for sale to the general public. However what would the GMC PAD be like if it did exist? It could most likely cost a bundle, for one thing. New high-finish motor homes can price within the vary of $800,000 to $1 million, and fashions which can be extra modest can nonetheless attain $250,000. The PAD is definitely a high-finish machine, with its "infotainment" gadgets, LCD screens, solar cells and hybrid engine. At minimum, its price would have to be a number of hundred thousand dollars. You'd need to live in it for many years to make up that distinction in rent financial savings, and that does not take into consideration gasoline costs or issues about the place you'd park your PAD.