Picture the scene – your train was canceled, the bus is delayed and you don’t know how you’re going to make it to work on time – what can you do?
Pull out your trusty Walkcar, of course.
What’s a Walkcar? Well, I’m glad you asked. The Japanese-designed Walkcar is dubbed the ‘car in a bag’ – which should go some way to explaining exactly what the nifty little device is.
Weighing just 2.9kg and roughly the size of your average laptop – or an A4 sheet of paper – the Walkcar, which Cocoa Motors developed, has a maximum speed of just over nine miles per hour (15k per hour) and is powerful enough to climb up a 12-degree slope.
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According to the Walkcar website: “The world’s smallest portable mobility vehicle was born from the idea of ‘I wish I could carry my car around’.
“Living unrestricted by distance from stations or transportation infrastructure will enrich people’s lives and change lifestyles and the way cities exist.”
Smart, right?
Due to its small size and weight, the Walkcar can easily be popped into a bag or rucksack or simply carried like a skateboard.
The design is completely hands-free as it uses four pressure-sensitive sensors that are built into the board’s surface – so you can accelerate, decelerate, and turn all by moving your feet around.
A user guide for the Walkcar explains that to speed up you can simply press the toes of both feet down on the board; to slow down or stop, you need to raise the toe of either of your feet; and to turn, use can your upper body and feet to shift your weight in the direction you want to go.
The handy little gadgets are also fitted with inbuilt suspension in order to absorb road vibrations, knocks, and bumps.
The newer models – the Walkcar 2/ 2 Pro – even come with vertical suspension on the front and rear wheels, as well as front and rear suspension on the front wheels.
Cocoa Motors says it takes ‘cutting edge’ materials to achieve the Walkcar’s ‘lightness and strength’ – with the vehicle made of ‘ultra-super duralumin’, the same material used in the wings of aircraft. Fancy.
The standard Walkcar 2 model costs $999 while the ‘Pro’ version is priced at $1,499
But if you’re looking for something a little more flash than the Walkcar, then you may be pleased to learn that a personal flying device – called the Airscooter – is currently in development.
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