The Rinspeed sQuba is an amphibious electric vehicle inspired by the submersible Lotus Esprit that Q gave to James Bond in The Spy Who Loved Me. There's only one sQuba in existence and it cost more than $1.5 million to engineer and build.
"For safety reasons, we have built the vehicle as an open car so that the occupants can get out quickly in an emergency," said (Rinspeed CEO Frank) Rinderknecht, 52.Passengers will be able to keep breathing underwater through an integrated tank of compressed air similar to what is used in scuba diving.
The sQuba's top speed on land is about 77 mph, but it slows down to 3 mph on the surface of the water, and 1.8 mph underwater….
"We always want to do cars that are outrageous, which nobody has done before. So we thought, 'Let's make a car dive,"' said Rinderknecht, whose innovative company has made transparent, flying and voice-activated cars in previous attention-grabbing displays at the Geneva Auto Show.
Link to CNN, Link to Rinspeed (Thanks, Lindsay Tiemeyer!)
