The bubble-shaped vehicle you see in the photos is called Hiriko, an urban two-seater EV being collaborated on by the the MIT, Spanish government and Basque businesses. It’s an electric vehicle with a novel take on things – it can be squeezed into a smaller footprint when parked.
The Hiriko features a unique folding design that allows it to be parked in a very limited space – this is accomplished by sliding the back section of the cabin forward and folding the cabin up vertically, resulting in a vehicle that takes up less space than a smart fortwo in the lot.
The design also features a single access door at the front of the vehicle, an advanced steer-by-wire system which removes all mechanical steering components, joystick controls as well as four independent in-wheel motors.
The first Hiriko made its debut earlier this week at the European Commission headquarters in Brussels. There’s no mention of range or performance, but it’s known that Axeon will be supplying the two lithium-ion batteries for the homologation prototypes – these will be mounted in parallel, one in each half of the vehicle, with the wheel-mounted motors providing four-wheel steering in addition to four-wheel drive.
Hiriko intends to franchise its production model to enable the vehicles to be locally and sustainably produced by a number of consortia in different markets. The EV, to be built in Vitoria-Gasteiz, will be targeted particularly at large cities, in which it will be available for rental.
The vehicle will be homologated this year, and the prototypes will be tested in cities around the world, with the expectation that it will enter the market sometime in 2013.
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hrrmmm… still not feeling it…
mehhh… why not just use inflate-deflate tech….. totally collapse it, just leave the wheels and engine … this is soooooooo 1980s
Ah yes you seem to remember Sir Clive Sinclair.
With this ‘car’ T, it would definitely fail any NCAP test. You cant fit the dummies in. They’ll be laughing their heads off too much.
NCAP test do no apply for cars <500kg in Europe. You can even register a kart there:
http://uk.wikipedia.org/wiki/%D0%A4%D0%B0%D0%B9%D0%BB:Kreidler_F_100_Kart.jpg
look like beetle eye on the side..
definitely no chick magnet feature in it
In Malaysia, if you side-parked this car & fold it, other people will then park their cars so close to yours. Later you cannot unfold your car. So better leave it unfolded which defeats the purpose of
having a foldable design in the 1st place.
If you can move it sideways while folded (add 4 small wheels that can be moved down like landing gear on a plane, and which go sideways) then this could be interesting. Safety is probably not existent, but then again many Malaysian cars have a total disregard for safety too, and no one cares.
you can always park it perpendicular in a parallel parking spot. not much unlike how the smart was sold to do…. but short as it is, the smart was still a little long for some spots to be parked this way.
i wonder if this would annoy motorcyclist to park at the moto spots much like how annoying they can be when u find motorbikes parked in a car spot…. :)
Can I buy one for my kid ?… This car definitely is for usage in golf area or theme park track if it comes to Malaysia.. I don’t think it is safe even if you drive it on a malaysia taman road. Most of Malaysian drivers just speeding without knowing which type of driveway they are on and what speed they suppose to drive on it. I bet most of the driver will only slowdown when they see a road hump ahead.. and this car is definitely hard to overcome such road hump. Especially Malaysia’s road humps must be tall enough for our drivers to really slow down otherwise most of those drivers will still speeding over the not-so-tall road humps. I guess most of the drivers here driving a SUV or Pick-up is to make sure they no need to slow down when come to a road humps.
make it small,futuristic,fuel economy then sell with the price of Camry.
No point.
Why would anyone go for this ugly metal can when u can have a neat looking sports bike?
So that they don’t have to stop and wait under a bridge when it rains ;P
can go thru speed bump? looks kinda low ground clearance
Finally this idea makes it to production. It was first showcased by Renault with its Zoom concept in 1992. More about the Zoom at http://www.diseno-art.com/encyclopedia/concept_cars/renault_zoom.html