Electric Car Less Than 3 Feet Wide

Now, we’ve seen plans for tiny fuel efficient cars, and even tiny electric cars, but this is a car I’d LOVE to try out as soon as it is a reality. I doubt it’d have a snowball’s chance here in America where, while we say we’re heading back to smaller cars, we still have a “size matters” complex. The itty bitty Lumeneo Smera is in the works – an electric car that drives like a motorcycle. It seats two passengers in the super slim 35.5 inch wide cab, and is about 8 feet long with trunk space.

While it has four wheels, it maneuvers like a motorcycle, tiliting around curves and corners, rather than turning wheels. On initially reading this I had visions of tip-overs and wipeouts, especially if you have a passenger – how are you supposed to shift your weight to get the car to “tilt” around turns? Well, apparently the car has that part under control. The car’s internal gadgets take into account the dynamic parameters of the car, the turning curves, the selected driving mode and the road quality, determining the optimal tilting angle and moving the cabin and four wheels for you so you can make turns without needing special training on how to drive the thing. Who knows – this might be the next generation of driving.

The wheels are powered by dual electric 20hp motors. Using Lithium technology, the battery takes a plug-in electric charge of 15kw to take you about 93 miles, but you only need 7kw to go as far as 62 miles miles. When considering this vehicle is likely to be used for busy city streets, and not open country roads, 93 miles is a good long way, making these potentially excellent delivery vehicles…for smaller packages. While you plug in to charge the battery, you also gain power by braking. Each braking action is transformed into energy by the alternator and is stored in the batteries.

The motors are designed to last about 124,000 miles, or about 10 years – so its right up there with our standard cars today. The cost is expected to be around $31,000 to $46,000. I can just see these taking over rush hour streets of busy European cities.

Original here