Parking a car in a crowded city is a nightmare, but navigating office towers with a bike in tow is no picnic either. The WalkCar promises to solve your commuting dilemma with a personal mobility device that’s so small you can carry it around in a laptop bag.
The WalkCar was created by Kuniaki Saito and a team of engineers at his company, Cocoa Motors. It’s so compact that you might actually be afraid to step on it, the same way you wouldn’t dare put a single foot on your expensive MacBook. But the 6.6-pound four-wheeled transport is designed to carry passengers as heavy as 265 pounds for up to almost seven-and-a-half miles on a single three hour charge.
Like other personal transportation devices that don’t come with a steering wheel, the WalkCar is maneuvered by the rider shifting their weight from side to side. To stop you simply just step off the tiny platform. The WalkCar might actually be easier to ride and steer than other compact mobility solutions that balance on two wheels, because it’s firmly planted on four wheels instead.
The WalkCar isn’t quite ready for primetime, though. It’s still just a (completely fuctional) prototype. This fall, its creators will be turning to Kickstarter to help them finalize its design and make it consumer-ready. If all goes well, the WalkCar could sell for around $800 when available next year. So slightly more expensive than a cheap bike, but far easier to store in your tiny apartment.
source: gizmodo.com by Andrew Liszewski
The Fat Cat Collective 