I will be honest with you. I am not fan of electric powered small transportations like the “hoverboard,” partly because it needs balancing and also I firmly believe humans are ‘designed’ to walk (whenever we can). I mean, at least for short distances we can choose to walk insert of relying on alternative transports. It is a form of exercise too. However, I fear that in future, walking may be a rare thing that mankind will do. While we probably we won’t degrade to the extreme convenience as depicted in the sci-fi animation Wall-E, in the future we may be gliding along as opposed to walking, thanks to inventions like the WalkCar electric vehicle by Cocoa Motors.
Billed as the world’s smallest electric vehicle (debatable, actually), WalkCar is about the size of a laptop and it is capable of ferrying up to 265 lbs of payload as it rolls on four tiny wheels that looks pretty much like those on office chairs. Though unclear what kind of electric motor, or motors, is driving it, the product video does show that it can handle an incline perfectly well. According to a report, it can attain a briskly 6.2 mph (10 km/h) and has a surprisingly healthy 7.5 miles range (12 km) per three-hour charge.
No words on when it will be available, even though it has been introduced since last July. Gizmag reported that it was slated to hit up Kickstarter, but a search did not reveal any history of WalkCar on the said crowdfunding platform. Even if it did, it won’t be cheap. It is said that each unit will cost about 100,000 Yen, which is around US$900 based on current going rate.
All images courtesy of Cocoa Motors
