Who Said Cars Can't Dive?
Once the stuff of movie action heroes, the sQuba car has now become the world’s first underwater car! The Swiss designers from Rinspeed have created the sQuba, which comes complete with scuba-like breathing equipment for both the driver and passenger, allowing you to enjoy a James Bond moment at depths of up to 30 feet below the surface of the waves.
It is this submerged stabile flight at a depth of 10 meters that sets
the “sQuba” apart from military vehicles. While the latter can go under
water, they are limited to driving slowly over the submerged ground. “It
is undoubtedly not an easy task to make a car watertight and pressure
resistant enough to be maneuverable under water. The real challenge
however was to create a submersible car that moves like a fish in
water”, said Rinderknecht.
It also had to be a sports car that was converted into a diving dream in the facilities of Swiss engineering specialist Esoro. In a first step the combustion engine was removed and replaced by several electric motors. Three motors are located in the rear. One provides propulsion on land, the other two drive the screws for underwater motoring. They are supported by two powerful Seabob jet drives in the front, which ‘breathe’ through special rotating louvers from HS Genion (for opening and closing the water intake). The rotating outlet jets were designed to be extremely light yet twist resistant by using high-tech nano materials, so-called Carbon Nano Tubes.
It also had to be a sports car that was converted into a diving dream in the facilities of Swiss engineering specialist Esoro. In a first step the combustion engine was removed and replaced by several electric motors. Three motors are located in the rear. One provides propulsion on land, the other two drive the screws for underwater motoring. They are supported by two powerful Seabob jet drives in the front, which ‘breathe’ through special rotating louvers from HS Genion (for opening and closing the water intake). The rotating outlet jets were designed to be extremely light yet twist resistant by using high-tech nano materials, so-called Carbon Nano Tubes.
It is a sure bet that the “sQuba” will steal the show from any
‘Baywatch’ beauty on the beach. And easily, too: You drive the car into
the water and the car floats. That is, until you crack the door to let
the water in. Immediately the “sQuba” starts on his way to the
underwater world. The occupants’ breathing air comes from an integrated
tank of compressed air that divers know from scuba diving.
Rinderknecht: “For safety reasons we have built the vehicle as an open
car so that the occupants can get out quickly in an emergency. With an
enclosed cabin opening the door might be impossible.”
Safety wasn’t the only reason for choosing an open-top design: With an
enclosed volume of just two cubic meters of air the vehicle weight would
have to increase by two tons to counteract the unwanted buoyancy,
giving the “sQuba” the land mobility of a turtle. Without occupants the
“sQuba” surfaces automatically. It is even capable of autonomous
driving on land thanks to a sophisticated laser sensor system from the
Hamburg company Ibeo - without any help from the driver or passenger.
