A cardboard bike
October 18, 2012
Working from his garden shed, Israeli inventor Izhar Gafni has invented a $20 cardboard bike, says The Telegraph.
The solid tires are made of reconstituted rubber from old car tires and some proprietary materials have been added for water protection and other purposes.
“This is a real game changer,” said Nimrod Elmish, Gafni’s business partner. ”It changes … the way products are manufactured and shipped, it causes factories to be built everywhere instead of moving production to cheaper labor markets, everything that we have known in the production world can change.”
Comments (22)
by Jim Mooney
Israel being a pretty dry place, is this rain-proof cardboard? If I am caught out in the rain at some point will I be carrying my bike home in a garbage bag?
by Editor
The original article and video explain his chemical treatments for waterproofing, etc.
by tucek
It’s creative! Great story….
by SpiritShout
I like this guy! what a great attitude, a natural Engineer and a man that can make something real by holding on to his intention. I do suspect however, that his $20 is somewhat different than my $20. :)
by Jim Mooney
Yeah, we’ll get hold of it and it will suddenly contain an iPod and sell for five hundred bucks to the effete-environmentalist crowd ;’)
by Franz Ternaut
So many game changers. We started out with Poker and ended up playing Ultra Ping Pong.
by Bri
There is absolutely no way that it costs $20. In materials yes. The amount of labor in fabricating one of those bikes would be outrageous. The time to just put a finish on it would be more than $20. Just to assemble and give it to a customer, let alone sell and ship, is more than $20. If it was printed with a 3D printer, out of nanocellulose, the frame and other structural parts could be cheaper and stronger than steel by weight, but just putting the rubber on the wheels and then attaching the wheels, will require labor of some kind. It could be robotic. It’s still has to be handled to get it to a consumer. So much time , effort and materials went into the development of this. What about those costs. Next bog question. How durable is it. This story is very misleading. He’s got a lot of time and money, to monkey around with this. There are a gazillion bike inventors, that have made very practical bikes. I’d expect a 3D printed bike to beat this any day, in terms of price, performance and marketability. It’s just novel because he used card board.
by Satan
The cost of materials used are estimated at $9 per unit
by godot
“This is a real game changer,” said Nimrod, Gafni’s business partner. ”… It causes factories to be built everywhere instead of moving production to cheaper labor markets…”
Since the materials are cheap, the labor cost is dominant. And it is light, making it cheap to ship. So the motivation to locate production in a low labor cost area is much greater than for a regular bike. Right??? Why do we have to put up with this kind of nonsense from Kurzweil? We never used to. I subscribed because this was THE place for the best new ideas & research first. Now we get this kind of thing. The same stuff that the regular is bloat bloat bloated with. PLEASE!!! Wake up, Ray!
by Editor
I’m waiting for Godot … to explain what the problem with the post is…. BTW, Ray is not involved in my bloated nonsense :)
by Chrispium
This “It causes factories to be built everywhere instead of moving production to cheaper labor markets” means you make it yourself.
by Sing
I am curious about the weight of the bicycle.
by Satan
A full-size cardboard bicycle will weigh around 9 kg (about 20 lbs) compared to an average metal bicycle, which weight around 14 kg.
by melajara
Very nice. Next question obviously is : could it be made from this process?
http://www.fastcodesign.com/1663306/the-worlds-most-complex-architecture-cardboard-columns-with-16-million-facets
by DJSNOLA
This is exciting , especially the pricepoint.
by GatorALLin
…if you don’t already know about Caines Arcade….then it is worth a look. This kid may prove to be the king of cardboard…
http://cainesarcade.com/
by Tom Moriarty
I would like to see factories or have the design licensed to Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank.
by Satan
Why should one person’s creation be given to a bunch of other people? and to be based on their geographic location or ethnic group? Because the inventor lives in Israeli? Typical Left Wing racism.
by Ramona
Good one, Satan.
by Gorden Russell
Moriarty wasn’t even talking about giving the design away. He said “licensed to Palestinians,” not to give it away. There is a lot of unemployment among the Palestinians, this drives down the cost of labor. Idle hands are the devil’s playground, so give them something to do.
by iraeise
When Israel evacuated Gaza, the Israelis GAVE the Palestinians newly built greenhouses to grow food…. The Palestinians immediately TRASHED them.
I wonder what they would do with cardboard bicycles?? Probably burn them because they came from Israel.
by Gorden Russell
You’re right, I’d forgotten about that. Hamas and Hezbollah won’t allow a Palestinian to accept a gift from an Israeli. Looks like you’ll have to license this idea to villagers in India.