Three Letters For The Future

2023 Author: Eric Donovan | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-08-25 09:36

Manufacturers are looking for the right concept for the mobility of the future. GM is showing what it could look like with the EN-V electric car in Shanghai.

The world population is growing and growing. This poses enormous challenges and questions for the mobility of the future and for car manufacturers. What will urban mobility look like in the future?

The manufacturer who is the first to provide an answer, or rather the right concept, will have a nose in front of this billion dollar business. In 2030, more than 60 percent of the then eight billion people in the world will live in urban areas. But nowadays there are no concepts that enable such a mass of people to continue to get from A to B individually. But the race to find the right mobility concept is in full swing.

New concept EN-V

One thing is clear: In 20 years' time, personal mobility will look different than it is today. What it might look like can be seen since Wednesday at the World Expo in Shanghai. There, the US car manufacturer GM, together with the Shanghai Automotive Industry Corporation Group (SAIC), is presenting a new mobility concept - the Electric Networked Vehicle, or EN-V for short.

Behind this shared vision for traffic in the future lies a reinterpretation of the car. It will be on display for the public in the joint pavilion of GM and SAIC at the World Expo. If you follow this vision, in 2030 it will no longer look like a car today. The vision behind EN-V aims to reinterpret nothing less than the car and thus mobility. The EN-V is a two-seater electric vehicle that is equipped for a time without petroleum. The EN-V is intended to offer its owner mobility without having to worry about the environment or worry about finding a parking space.

Pride, magic, laughter

A total of three EN-V models with the names Jiao (pride), Miao (magic) and Xiao (laughter) will be presented in Shanghai. The new EN-V concept goes back to the "Personal Urban Mobility and Accessibility (PUMA)" prototype that was developed by GM and Segway and presented in April 2009. This vehicle is driven by an electric motor for each drive wheel. The vehicle draws its energy from modern lithium-ion batteries that can be charged at any conventional household socket. Thanks to its lightweight construction (carbon components are used), EN-V enables a purely electric range of 40 kilometers with one charge. The maximum torque is specified by GM with 500 Newton meters, the top speed with 40 km / h. More than enough to get around town.

Thanks to the integrated GPS system, the vehicle can also travel completely autonomously, using car-to-car communication. The developers hope that this communication between the vehicles will result in a significant increase in safety and, as a result, a corresponding reduction in accidents.

Car-to-car communication

The EN-V is equipped with a large number of cameras and sensors that are intended to increase driving safety over the long term. If, for example, a pedestrian appears in front of the EN-V, it is able to automatically reduce its speed or stop completely. As Alan Taub, GM's Vice President for Development, said the EN-V concept is a milestone in the research of autonomous vehicles. "The modules that we have advanced in the EN-V, such as the lane departure warning system, the blind spot assistant and the adaptive speed control, are already proving their suitability for series production in current GM models."

Depending on the model, the EN-V weighs between 400 and 415 kilograms and has a length of 1.5 meters, a width of 1.423 meters and a height of 1.64 meters like the Jiao. With these dimensions, the EN-V has a turning circle of 1.74 meters and thus enables unimagined flexibility.

But as always when it comes to such concepts, the question also arises as to whether the EN-V in its current form will ever be seen on the streets. As it is now presented, it will not be launched. But GM and SAIC want to use the technologies of this concept to integrate it into later vehicles. (AG / FM)