This car transport will ply the North Sea bringing vehicles back and forth between various points in Europe. Supposedly the newly designed "bubble" front end, greatly reduces wind resistance and improves the ship's fuel economy. Given that the largest cargo ships in the world burn the equivalent of 15 tons of fuel per hour and about 100,000 tons of fuel per year the 800 tons of fuel that the "bubble nose" saves is a benefit of less than 1%...Ummm...yeah...I think the engineers and welders responsible for this bubble nose could have been better off working on something else...
"Nissan Motors is making headlines not for its environmentally-friendly electric cars, but for a massive ship that will transport them.
The transport car carrier called “The City of St. Petersburg” weighs 21,000 tons. It is the first carrier of its kind to incorporate a unique design, cutting air resistance by nearly 50 percent.
[Satoshi Yako,Nissan Motors]: "You can say that the ship’s spherical prow design is the world’s first. Thanks to this aerodynamic design we expect to see a substantial reduction in the ship’s fuel consumption.”
The car manufacturer hopes to cut down fuel consumption by 800 tons - the equivalent of 2,500 tons a year of CO2 emissions.
The ship is heading to Europe, where it hopes to be the most effective.
[Satoshi Yako, Nissan Motors]: "This ship will be mainly put in use in European coastal waters, especially in the North Sea where there are strong winds. We hope that northern Europe is where the aerodynamic design is especially effective.”
The ship has space for 2,000 cars and will be put into use to transport vehicles to Northern Europe and Russia from Nissan’s factories in the United Kingdom and Spain."
