Tired from walking? A new technology has created the tiniest personal vehicle that could let you roam the streets without lifting a foot.
Tagged as Walkcar and built by Cocoa Motors, the new invention is the "the world’s smallest car" at only 2.8 kilograms (6 pounds) and about 13 inches. Walkcar can easily fit insider a 13" laptop bag and is light-weight for pedestrians to carry it. It also has a fast charging time at one hour and is designed to learn the rider's body so that it can go to the right direction, Trehugger reports.
Kuniaki Sato, CEO of Cocoa Motors, came up with the idea after moving to Tokyo to attend university and after observing people's preference in using public transport and walking rather than driving private cars. Because of this, he came up with the concept of a "car in your bag," where he can create a form of transportation that enbales people to go to long distances without exhaustion.
The Walkcar is made from aluminum and comes with an indoor or outdoor version. After three hours of charging, the Walkcar can go as fast as 6.2 miles per hour and travel 10 kilometers. In some cases, it can even travel to 12 kilometers at 7.4 miles per hour.
"I thought, 'what if we could just carry our transportation in our bags, wouldn't that mean we'd always have our transportation with us to ride on?' and my friend asked me to make one, since I was doing my masters in engineering specifically on electric car motor control systems," Sado said in an interview with Reuters.
"Maybe I just see it that way, but it seems to me that the U.S. is always the one which invents new products and Japan is the one which takes those products and improves on them to make a better version of it. But here in this case, the WalkCar is a totally new product I have started from scratch. So I also I want to show the world that Japan can also be innovative," he added.
The Walkcar is currently priced at approximately $800 and shipping is expected to begin by spring of 2016.