Fold Up Electric Car

Future city traffic may consist largely of electric microcars – environmentally efficient and emissions-free, two-seater EVs – Electric vehicles, with motors within the wheels, could well be the way of the future, especially if this new model is anything to go by, as you enter it through a fold-up front windscreen.

Not only that, but the pod-like Hiroko car – Basque word – folds into a smaller size on parking, wheels able to pivot at right angles, making parking in the tightest of spots very simple indeed, the entire car under 5ft long when parked.

Scheduled for mass production and commercial sale by spring 2013, there are currently, 20 Hirikos being readied to go for street trials in several cities around the world in late 2012, effectively advertising the comfort, convenience and common-sense that are said to be major advantages, and costing about $16,500.

Designed and developed in Spanish Basque, by MIT – Massachusetts Institute of Technology – in collaboration with seven contributing Basque companies –the 1.5 meter long prototype car went on show on 24th January 2012, a 100% electric vehicle without mechanical controls, and incorporating state of the art information system.

That fold-up wind screen is made possible because four in-wheel motors mean there is no traditionally connected drive train, the effective four-wheel drive system having sufficient traction for coping with different driving conditions when on the road.

No steering-wheel is in evidence either, as a joystick – a so-called Haptic mechanism that tugs at driver’s fingers and urges steering moves as directed by the on-board navigation system. Though comparatively tiny Hiroko has a 75 mile range without recharging, though it will be no speedster speed pre-set to city speed limits.

Anybody used to city parking will know that the bigger the car, the worse it is, especially in tight slots, and this wonderful little Hiroko can fit into a space half the size that even the most compact car requires, as getting in and out involves the driver folding the windscreen to climb in and out, and it can actually reach 59mph top speed, so it is no slouch, as EVs go.