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This is the Roewe "Mobilliant", the winner of the 2013 LA Auto Show's design challenge. Roewe, you may recall, is the name adopted by SAIC for its range of cars based on what-was-once the Rover 75, once they realised that Land Rover owned the Rover name so it was off-limits.
The "Mobilliant" is a single-seat urban transport solution, and its body is supposedly inspired by the shape and physical layout of the body of an ant. Unusually, it's notionally powered by not batteries or a fuel cell, but a bio-fuel cell. Instead of running on conventional fuels, the "mobiliant" collects carbon and other pollutants from the atmosphere as it drives along, and stores it in a tank. Once it reaches a 'docking station' those gases are pumped out and can be used to help make fertiliser that is used to grow plants, which are then distilled into biofuel. That fuel then becomes the hydrogen source for the biofuel cell. Clever, no?
The "Mobilliant's" body is divided into three sections with the passenger compartment in the middle and the two ends mounted on rotating rings, which allow the wheels and suspension to swivel around a central axis that theoretically allows the car to easily adapt to any surface.
The design of the car has been supervised by Anthony Kenny Williams, SAIC's chief of design, who has also recently been responsible for the MG6 and MG3.
Anything else?
SAIC has even gone to the trouble of designing special tube-like roads with 'non-stop' junctions for the "Mobilliant" to scurry along, giving it its own uncongested routes through an urban landscape. Good luck with the planning permission on those...
Neil Briscoe - 29 Nov 2013