The Ecooter is a Chinese electric vehicle that looked like an enclosed scooter, created for people in small or urban cities. This EV does have four wheels and can be maneuvered into incredibly tight parking spots. Its 60-mile range is the only statistic known, but Jalopnik for one seems to think it’s a viable concept.
Portuguese designer André Costa won the Peugeot Design Competition with the ‘Moovie’, an extremely agile electric car that looks about as futuristic as any vehicle design we’ve ever seen. A scale 1 concept version of the Moovie was built for the Frankfurt Motor Show and though it’s non-operational, it’s an impressive look into what we might be driving in the decades to come.
Carlsbad, California residents must have gotten quite a shock when a drivable prototype of the Aptera Typ-1 hit the roads in 2007. The electric version of the Typ-1 has a 125-mile range while the gasoline version gets up to 300 mpg. Both models are nearly production-ready and will cost around $30,000. A third, more conventional-looking model with a four-wheeled chassis and seating for up to 5 passengers is in the works.
Popular Science magazine named the UnoCycle the Invention of the Year, and it has also received several ‘best engineering’ and ‘best in category’ awards at motorcycle shows. Created by 18-year-old Ben Gulak, who was inspired to build it after visiting smog-plagued China, this gyroscopic two-wheeled motor bike is light enough to be taken indoors to charge and runs for 2.5 hours. The rider leans forward to accelerate to speeds up to 25mph, and leans backward to slow down.
Tucked into a lightly-trafficked corner of the 2008 Geneva Auto Show was the Lumeneo Smera, an extremely narrow electric vehicle that, amazingly enough, manages to fit two people inside. It’s so small, it fits into the same footprint as many of the scooters used throughout Europe. It’s capable of 80 mph and has a range of 93 miles, and leans into turns like a motorcycle. Planned production for 2009 is 250 units.
Nissan unveiled the Pivo 2, an advanced electric concept car that will debut at the upcoming Tokyo Motor Show. Nissan Pivo 2 builds on the popularity of the first Pivo, shown at the 2005 Tokyo Motor Show. Like its predecessor the three seater electric car has wheels which can turn 90 degrees for easy parallel parking and a cabin which can revolve 360 degrees eliminating the need to reverse. The car has "by-wire" technologies that use electric signals in the steering and braking.
Coming to the round eyed robotic assistant the Papero it has cameras which monitor the driver constantly. "You look tired. There's a coffee shop 500 meters ahead on the left," it told a driver with drooping eyelids at a recent demonstration. If it sense the driver is in a bad mood it will nod or shake its head to improve the mood.
The Eliica (or the Electric Lithium-Ion Car) is a battery electric vehicle prototype or concept car first shown in 2004 and designed by a team at Keio University in Tokyo, led by Professor Hiroshi Shimizu. The 5.1 m (17 ft) car runs on a lithium-ion battery and can accelerate from 0–100 km/h (62 mph) in four seconds (faster than the Porsche 911 Turbo at the time).
In 2004, the Eliica reached a speed of 370 km/h (230 mph) on Italy's Nardò High Speed Track. The team's goal is to exceed 400 km/h (250 mph), breaking the record set by today's street-legal gasoline-powered vehicles.
The design of the Keio Advanced Zero-Emmision Vehicle (KAZ) Eliica is pretty polarizing, with as many people holding their noses as praising its familiar-yet-strange looks. The Eliica has four axles with eight wheels and reaches up to 230 mph. It takes 10 hours to charge, travels 125 miles on a single charge and can accelerate to 62 mph in 4.1 seconds. The wheels house motors, so the four extras help it reach those extreme speeds, and the car’s seemingly excessive length is necessary to host the batteries, which cover almost the entire floor area.
