They introduced this in Britain yesterday to enormous fanfare. It's called the "Aquada". It's shown on the river Thames, where it can go 30 MPH, but what's interesting about it is that it can go 100 MPH on land, and converts from moving on one to the other with a press of a button. It drives right into the water, becomes a boat, and then drives right out of the water again and becomes a car. The driver uses the same wheel to steer and the same accelerator pedal to go faster.
The makers say it beats out all previous attempts to do things like this because of how fast it goes. It's kinda made possible, I gather, from the jet-ski approach to getting through the water.
Two years ago I rented a four-person jet-ski type vehicle made by Yamaha while vacationing in Ocean City MD. With four people aboard it could do 40 MPH on the water, and the folks there said it cost about $20,000. (It was $100 for an hour to rent. It was worth it... hella fun)
This vehicle is more like that thing than a car. For one thing, there's no roof or doors on the Aquada. It is meant to be waterproof, so if it's rainy on the roads you have to pretend you're out on the bay.
And then there's the price tag: over $200,000. Now it starts to make less and less sense; for WELL under that price you could have a much better car, one of those Yamaha jet-ski boats, and slips at many different locations.
The other problem is that there will be a learning curve for people driving this thing. Boats don't drive like cars -- not even like big boaty American cars. That's what confused me when I drove the rented jet-ski thingie: without propulsion, you have no steering.
So who buys this item? I guess, only two types: one, commuters who could see a huge gain by straddling a body of water that doesn't have a bridge. Two, idle rich who want another toy to brag about.
Hmm, or three, people who want to boat on two different bodies of water without hauling their boat from point A to point B. But it really is a silly thing.