Electric autonomous vehicle revealed: could replace petrol and diesel cars within five years

Published 11 February 2020

Gordon Murray Design has revealed pictures of an autonomous vehicle which could replace petrol or diesel cars in busy urban areas within the next few years.

The designer behind the 1990s' McLaren F1 road car has developed the autonomous pod as part of a consortium with Silverstone-based Delta Motorsport and mobility specialist ItMoves.

Part-funded by the UK Government, the Motiv is a cost-effective, lightweight quadricycle designed to meet full passenger-car crash safety requirements.

With its compact footprint, its designers say the 2.5m-long pod has the potential to reduce congestion in city centres while its electric powertrain will reduce emissions.

The Motiv uses a 17.3kWh battery pack to power a 20kW electric motor. Officially, it can provide a five-hour continuous run time and a range of 62 miles. Charging takes 40 minutes (from 20 to 80 per cent), while the electric pod tops out at 40mph. Acceleration from 0 to 39mph takes five seconds.

The platform also has the potential to be modified for different requirements - an extra seats could be fitted, for example, or space for a wheelchair. It could also provide a luggage capacity of more than 1100 litres for business users, making it an option for last-mile deliveries.

Ready to enter its final development phase, the consortium says it's looking to partner with autonomous technology providers to pilot its adaptation to driverless use. Following this, it could be ready for mass production within two to five years.

Comments

Engineer Andy on 11 February 2020

Not a chance. I wouldn't want to be inside this tiny thing if it was involved in an accident, and I'd love to know how it has a storage capacity of 1100L for deliveries - where's the 'delivery person' going to sit? Packages don't deliver themselves, and what's to stop someone stealing all the other packages if it opens up by your front door?

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on 11 February 2020

Looks like there won't be a "Delivery Person", everything will work off an un-hackable APP, which seems to be the answer to everyone too lazy to press a button or flick a switch here and there.

Speaking with a Car Salesman at the weekend, I was advised that in future I would need to organise my driving to suit the whereabouts of electric power points round the country if I wanted to recharge, book my slot using the APP. Not very useful when bagging Munros off the beaten track.

DJM
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gordonbennet on 13 February 2020

Speaking with a Car Salesman at the weekend, I was advised that in future I would need to organise my driving to suit the whereabouts of electric power points round the country if I wanted to recharge,

He'd best be looking for another job then, because a heck of a lot of us are going to keep running our existing petrol/Diesel/hybrid cars for as long as possible, and some of will use the passing of or complete banning of ICE vehicles to give up driving completely, which will be great for the climate (if you are a believer) but leaving those driving what they are told to make up the tax shortfall.

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