…And how we’ll be getting around in them according to General Motors
General Motors is collaborating with a Chinese-Singaporean consortium to build a real-life city of the future where cars will be a thing of the past and people will travel around in segway-type vehicles.
The forward-thinking company is said to be relying on renewable energy sources and mass transit as key elements in its environmentally-friendly design.
Located on the outskirts of one of China’s largest existing metropolises, the Tianjin Eco-City was conceived as a large-scale prototype for sustainable, high-density communities.
The creators are planning for almost all of the eventual population of the city – expected to be around 350,000 – to get around town using a light rail system.
An artists perception of the eco-city
However there would still be a need for people to get from point to point and that´s where GM – and the specially modified segways – come in.
According to Fox, at the 2010 Shanghai World Expo, the automaker unveiled the innovative EN-V concept, which mates a version of the self-balancing, two-wheel propulsion system used in the utilitarian Segway PT with an enclosed passenger compartment that seats either one or two people and has all of the creature comforts of a car.
But the EN-V is more than just a segway or even a car. The advanced telematics allow it to ´talk´ to other vehicles nearby and it will have a number of cameras which scan the area looking for pedestrians and other obstacles.
These features, and the reliable and accurate GPS system if said to make the two-seat, two-wheeled pods accident proof and able to drive itself.
But it will not be able to go on highways or other roads that traditional cars and other vehicles are on.
EN-V spokesman, Dan Flores told FoxNews.com that GM has been looking for partners to help it demonstrate this technology in a real world environment, but that existing cities find it hard enough to fit bike lanes into existing transportation networks, let alone the type of roadway and charging infrastructure that would be necessary to facilitate the use of these types of vehicles.
GM believes that as urban areas get more densely populated and more wealth flows to big cities around the world, consumers will want small, efficient vehicles that allow them to maintain their freedom to go where they want instead of opting for public transportation.
While the partnership is in its early stages, Mr Flores notes that if the vehicles do make it to the road they will probably not look exactly like the current EN-V concepts.
He said that the prototypes are more representative of GM thinking out loud about solutions to a growing global population and will be further developed before entering productioFancy yourself in one of these? Check out the video below.
src=”http://www.youtube.com/embed/C6EFJ3862Ys” allowfullscreen=”” width=”560″ height=”349″ frameborder=”0″> Via The Daily Mail The liveeco team
