Hands on: GM EN-V
The most conventional bit about General Motor’s car of the future are the controls that let us drive it. And even they take some getting used to.
The EN-V (Electric Networked Vehicle) is a believable vision of what city dwellers will be driving 20 to 30 years from now. Incredibly, despite ticking all the boxes needed to convincingly star in a sci-fi movie, this electric two-seater is driveable and even, with a few tweaks, sellable.
By far the most exciting part of the drive happens before you’ve even moved. Press a button on the controller and the whole vehicle tips back and balances on its two parallel wheels.
Using the same gyroscopic system as the stand-on Segway, the EN-V stays perfectly upright without any need to correct on the part of the driver or passenger.
In fact, throw your weight forward and the EN-V instantly corrects. There’s a bit of rocking and a few mm of forward movement, but that soon stops and you’re back on an even keel (it doesn’t tip, we tried). It’s a completely different approach to that other transport of the future, the Renault Twizy.
It works by attaching the extraordinary helmet-shaped carbon fibre body onto runners fitted into the magnesium chassis. Through a system of cables, the body is pulled forward or back to keep the whole thing level. With the weighty lithium-ion batteries down low in the chassis, the EN-V feels remarkably stable.
With just one axle, it’s incredibly short at just 1.5m end to end. For a comparison, the Smart ForTwo also seats two, but is 2.7m long. That compactness is of course very useful in cities, and in GM’s vision of the future this will allow the construction of special lifts outside our apartment blocks to take us and our EN-V right to our flat. Or let us drive it onto special train carriages for journeys longer than the 25-mile battery range.
Because the two electric motors can spin each wheel in different directions, the EN-V will turn on its own axis. The manoeuvrability this allows is the second most impressive thing about driving it – the only vehicle we can think of with the same ability to steer itself out tight spots is the jetski. New buyers will spend a lot of time just spinning around, we predict.
Of course, the actual driving experience is hardly a let down. The controller resembles a Sony PSP handheld game, with the hands grasping moveable blocks either side of a rectangular screen. This will relay video, internet, range and satnav, but today the Windows operating system had crashed (the garage of the future will basically be one big IT department, we predict).
No matter. We turn the entire controller to steer and press the moveable blocks forward to accelerate and back to brake. No actual brake pads mind, just very aggressive regenerative braking to recharge the batteries. No suspension either, so even bumps in our conference hall test drive in Bedfordshire were felt keenly.
With 24bhp on tap, it’ll do 25mph flat out, but not once did it feel unstable. As far as we were concerned, there could have been four wheels underneath.
However, the idea is that we won’t need to control it at all. The EN-V comes with an array of sensors, some of which are already available in modern cars, to spot and avoid obstacles. On top of that, the satnav equipped EN-V will link with similar vehicles, platooning in formation along city streets and removing the need for any kind of traffic control. It’ll even steer to the side of the road to let past similarly networked emergency vehicles.
Thomas Brown, the US-based project manager who accompanied our drive, describes it as “another member of the family” that can be sent off on its own to pick up the kids from school or granny for Sunday lunch. This automation will also allow it to park itself and return to you like a faithful pet at the sound of a digital whistle.
The infrastructure needed to run a fleet of these will mean they won’t co-exist with regular cars, but instead be confined to dedicated environments such as the new eco-cities (slowly) taking shape in Dongtan outside Shanghai in China and Masdar in Abu Dhabi. The cost is predicted to be around £8,000 and GM reckons it’ll be ready to sell them in 10 years’ time.
Right now GM has 20 working models in three different designs, purely for demonstration purposes. It puts the cost of each at £250,000… which, according to a Vauxhall insider, didn’t stop Jay Kay of Jamiroquai fame putting in an offer for one at this year’s Goodwood Festival of Speed.
