iLeo

Hmmmmmmmm...

Nicoli35

Science!

jlanka

Nice!

Gene G

That's it. Just fold it up on the ground and then when you use it next time you can put all the dirt from the street all over you car.

barihunk

It's not touching the car anyways, probably won't be a huge problem since the dirt isn't rubbing against the finish.

It is however quite expensive.

Edit: And it is not for outdoor use. From the FAQ:

Nicoli35

Not to be negative, but what on earth would the use for this be, then?

ny991

I wouldn't touch it.

chuckbdc

Indoors? How could I look and stoke it with that thing in the way?

John 996 TT Cab

Actually I can see a use indoors also. I live in North Vancouver, about a mile from the coal port and we get coal dust on everything and it does find it's way into our garage and house. This might work in that instance but then I'd need two and don't think I could fit two in the garage.

Amalgam

I bought a pop up camping tent similar to this. Folding it up is a PITA. Not as easy as it looks in the video.

carrerapete

Ha, ha, you'd better watch the video again in slow motion.

yxc145

Looks like it can get blown away by strong wind easily.
May work with someone with a house and driveway. I will probably get a ticket for having this parking on the city streets. ha ha.

Nicoli35

It's amazing at 100 rpm and goes outside too, I'm in love with this one!!

Carrera GT

I think the design is basically flawed in that it ends up touching the ground, then touching the paint. Imagine that one errant piece of knife-edged grit stuck to the inside of the fabric, then a breeze causes the fabric to vibrate or billow against the paint all day. Anyway, imagine being in a dirty, asphalt parking lot somewhere and monkeying around with folding that thing.

Coincidentally, I came up with a similar idea (based on a tent) years ago when trying to battle Aussie summer heat and the occasional passing flock of birds with particularly poor diets.

Please consider the following copyright and cut me a royalty deal if you want to use any of these design concepts ...

I was going for more of a canopy that a fully enclosed cover, but it could easily be a fully enclosed design for people wanting longer term protection. The idea was to have four "anchor" plates, just pop them in front of each wheel, roll the car forward to hold down the plates. Then drop in "masts" that would flex and arc over the top of the car, diagonally across the car from front to back, then cross braces to extend out over the front and rear of the car, like a typical dome tent, and then deploy the fabric over the various poles and the whole thing becomes quite rigid with tension lines (to avoid rain water pooling or catching the wind like a sail.) Everything would be produced in recycled plastics or renewable organic materials (bamboo, etc.) and store compactly in something about the size of a pizza box, but perhaps designed to be in two pieces so it could be stored in a variety of ways in the car (especially if it's wet or dirty) perhaps in a flexible watertight bag and in a watertight tube to carry the poles broken down to 2 foot lengths.

No step in the setup or tear down requires a comical folding operation, the fabric is constrained by lines that prevent it touching the ground of the car and the whole show is locked to the plates under the tires for security against theft of the canopy itself, and as a deterrent to someone breaking into the car.

The objective was enough cover to keep off the heat of the sun (a major issue in Australia where cabin heat fills the air with plastics gasses and makes the car unbearably hot, which goes to fuel consumption to turn the a/c compressor for long periods to bring the cabin temp down.) The design incorporated a cooling mechanism based on convection with the option to use a passive evaporator cooler (basically wet canvas) to help keep the air trapped inside/under the canopy far below the ambient. Instead of a lot of tent poles, these days, the cooling device and the ends of the canopy could be inflatable tubes like a kiteboarding kite. These require a tiny volume of air and only seconds to inflate or deflate. Someone in a hurry wouldn't even need to inflate the tubes -- the fabric could remain unsupported in these areas and still function to cover the glasshouse of the car.

That was 20+ years ago and nobody wanted to make it.

Today, you could envisage a similar design with the "never quite here, yet" solar photovoltaic paint that could be used to treat the whole canopy and potentially (sorry) generate a modest couple of amps to perhaps help an electric vehicle run its own HVAC or to tender a little charge to the vehicle batteries. In any design, success would be a matter of price, utility and convenience. Something that could be deployed in a matter of five minutes would pay for itself and the benefit is the luxury of a cool car, free from that bird dropping problem eating into the wax and threatening the clear coat. I used to park outside a building where my car was seasonally invaded by the small needles and pollen of the local trees. Being a convertible, it was always worth throwing a white car cover over it rather than take on the chore of extracting all those damn little needles and seeds everywhere in the convertible top mechanism. I think there's a real market for such a product, but I wonder what it would take to get it on the shelf at the local auto parts store or as a stocking stuffer, etc.?