GM EN-V Concepts
 

In 1939, General Motors wowed the world with its daring vision of the future of transportation as dramatized in its Futurama exhibit at the World's Fair in New York City. It set the clock forward to 1960, when, GM forecast, people would all own their own cars, drive them on interstate highways, and enjoy high-speed platooning of multiple vehicles (still to come). The General is planning another such display to go live at the next World's Fair, Expo 2010 opening in Shanghai, China this summer. Not surprisingly, the theme of the show hosted by one of the world's true megalopolises is "Better City, Better Life."

GM and Chinese partner Shanghai Automotive Industry Corporation (SAIC) are again projecting 20 years into the future, when it is believed that urban areas will accommodate more than 60 percent of the world's 8 billion people. This will put tremendous pressure on a public infrastructure that is already struggling to meet the growing demand for transportation and basic services. If living standards are to continue rising and the denizens of this crowded future still hope to enjoy personal mobility (predictions put the vehicle fleet at 1.2 billion cars), the paradigm has to shift. Radically.

The three concepts making their official debut in a few weeks at the Beijing Auto Show represent further development of the Personal Urban Mobility & Accessibility (PUMA) concept unveiled at last year's New York Auto Show. They are collectively referred to as EN-V, for Electric Networked Vehicles. Each is a different GM Design studio's take on styling a minimalist carbon fiber and polycarbonate cocoon over what is essentially a two-seat, two-wheel, electric Segway chassis. Their English names translate to Pride, Laugh, and Magic, which enjoy a rhyming affinity in Chinese (Jiao, Xiao, and Miao respectively). Chinese mega-city commuters currently expend 30 percent of their fuel looking for parking, in part because today's cars require almost 280 square feet of parking space per car (including aisles) and spend 90 percent of their time parked. But these highly maneuverable EN-V triplets can turn around in just 5.7 feet so they require just 47 square feet of parking (that's about six EN-Vs to one "normal" car). Because most urban trips are one to three miles in length and are covered at low speeds, these urban mobility vehicles don't need 300-mile range and 100-mph capability, so the lithium-iron phosphate battery pack is limited to a 25-mile range and the combined 12-hp of the two DC motors top out 25 mph.