The experimental South Korean 'Armadillo-T'
electric car can travel 100 km on a 10-minute charge and when it comes
to park, the car almost halving its body length to just 1.65 meters.
DAEJEON
(South Korea): With a click on a smartphone, the experimental
“Armadillo-T” electric car made in South Korea will park itself and fold
nearly in half, freeing up space in crowded cities.
The quirky two-seater, named after the animal whose shell it
resembles, may never see production but it is part of a trend of
developing environmentally friendly vehicles for urban spaces.
The car can travel 100 km on a 10-minute charge and has a maximum speed of 60 km per hour.
When it comes time to park, the rear of the vehicle folds over the
front, almost halving its body length to just 1.65 meters (65 inches).
“They
can be parked in every corner of the street and buildings, be it
apartments, shopping malls or supermarkets,” said Suh In-soo, a
professor at Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology who led
development of the car.
Suh did away with rear-view mirrors by adding tiny digital cameras
that show the back and sides of the car on a flat screen on the
dashboard. A Windows-based computer system communicates with the
driver’s smartphone and enables self-parking.
The Armadillo-T cannot legally venture on to the road in South Korea
because it does not meet certain mandatory criteria, such as
withstanding crashes. Suh said South Korea should relax rules for micro
cars, exempting them from crash requirements because of their relatively
low speeds.
A video demonstrating the prototype has been viewed more than 780,000 times on YouTube. - Reuters
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