Shane Chen, the prolific inventor behind the original Hovertrax hoverboard and the Solowheel, has designed an eponymous EV. Like his Hovertrax, the SHANE car only has two wheels. “Gone is the complicated front wheel steering system,” writes Chen’s company, Inventist. “Instead, maneuverability and parking is easy with SHANE thanks to two wheel differential speed control.”
The cabin between the wheels, which automatically stays level, seats five. “The wheels automatically react relative to the car body to keep the car in perfect balance,” the company writes.
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“SHANE’s shifting center of gravity relative to the wheels counters the driving and braking torque to keep the car level, making it as stable and safe as being on four wheels.”
“[The car features] large wheels that minimize rolling resistance and in-wheel regenerative shocks that save damping energy to recharge the battery.”
Here’s how the concept looks in motion:
The video doesn’t show ingress/egress for the rear seat passengers, so I assume that’s yet to be worked out.
I find the design interesting in its reductiveness; EVs are already far simpler, from a manufacturing perspective, than ICE cars, and Chen’s design removes even more components.
From a performance perspective, the key benefit is clearly the zero turning radius; if all cars were configured that way, the designs of our parking lots and even roads could change.
As a passenger, I wouldn’t like that there’s no sideways visibility; perhaps, if the technology was feasible, hubless wheels could solve that.
Source: core77