Talked about crazy concept cars. This concept called Elevate might just be the craziest concept car even in 2020 and perhaps, for many years to come. Elevate was born out of Hyundai’s hub for start-up collaboration, venture capital, and technical and conceptual innovation and development, CRADLE.
Elevate was created in conjunction with industrial design firm, Sundberg-Ferar. Hyundai Elevate is part car, part quadrupedal robot (of sort), and if that doesn’t already sound crazy enough, I don’t know what else would be.
Anyways, Elevate is also known as “walking car” because, that’s what it do too. Using complex multi-joint legs inspired by those of a grasshopper (but it does not hop, btw), Elevate is able to traverse terrains and obstacles otherwise not possible with regular automobiles.
It can lift itself above flowing water, traverse over debris, jump over gaps, and even climb steps. Forget about rock crawlers. This thing will tackles those like a quadrupedal animal.
The benefits are clear. If cars could have legs, it could play a role in rural exploration, construction and disaster relief. It will allow rescue teams to reach areas where there are no roads, or roads have been damaged.
For houses or buildings with stairs, Elevate could climb the steps for wheelchair users to disembark. Now, that’s seriously cool.
Elevate is not from CES 2020. A prototype model of the Elevate was presented a year ago, at CES 2019. However, we do not know the fate of this bold and unique concept. Deep down, we hope it will be a real thing in new future. Since we can’t have flying cars (yet). Can we, at least, have walking cars?
Images and source: Hyundai Motor Company.
