Carbon Motors: Police (if Not Investors) Aware

Sajeev Mehta
by Sajeev Mehta

Heard of Carbon Motors? Relax. You're not alone in your ignorance. The Atlanta-based automotive concern believes the law enforcement community deserves more than clumsy Crown Vics and cramped Dodge Chargers. To wit: a suicide-door'd, diesel-powered macho sedan with none of the manufacturing constraints plaguing the Big 2.8's masculine metal. Carbon's recent collaboration with Lotus Engineering sounds promising on paper, but the CGI-intensive website is distinctly DeLorean-esque in its lack of a business plan. No matter, the digitally rendered, Walrus-nosed prototype makes Carbon's pie-in-the-sky venture a hypothetical breath of fresh air. And not much else.

Sajeev Mehta
Sajeev Mehta

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  • Sajeev Mehta Sajeev Mehta on Oct 10, 2007
    When I jumped on there website a few months ago they had a rolling chassis prototype and agreements with Ford for drivetrains. Guess that changed and I don’t care enough to go back to there site and read more vaporware. According to what I read they already had a factory in Atlanta under construction. Agreements with Ford to help make a car that threatens to kill one of its easiest revenue streams? I bet things changed. I saw none of those tangibles on the site/press releases. But if I got it wrong, TTAC will happily correct it.
  • Redbarchetta Redbarchetta on Oct 10, 2007

    I'm not arguing with you in the slightest, I found a lot of what they said to be very flakey last time I looked so all this is very believable. According to there site Ford welcomed Carbon to take the police burden off their hands, like selling cars is a burden now. They had and still do have very high hopes without much substance. I think I am going to drive by this place when I head up to Atlanta this weekend and see for myself if they have an assembly plant. I really want to see what makes their platform so perfect for police applications, but that's very hush hush.

  • Redbarchetta Redbarchetta on Oct 10, 2007

    Why does SCAD have to be involved in this? Practical design is not something they teach well there. Interesting to see how many useless do-dads and flashy exterior they put on a squad car. I went to SCAD, great program with some good professors that lack any real world experience.

  • Sajeev Mehta Sajeev Mehta on Oct 10, 2007

    I'm guessing SCAD is probably cheaper than CCS, Art Center and CIA (yes readers, that's an art school) by several orders of magnitude. Maybe the CGI is a freebie for future commitments: and making Carbon an all Georgia affair makes sense to me. I’m not arguing with you in the slightest, I found a lot of what they said to be very flakey last time I looked so all this is very believable. Understood, I'm just laying it all out if someone has factual corrections for us. We'll do the same for Carbon that we did for Tesla.

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