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Armadillo-T is a folding electric car that’s flawed beyond belief

Finding somewhere decent to park has to rank as one of the biggest annoyances a motorist must face. Scientists are on the case, however. One group, from Korea, have just revealed a new folding electric car that takes up next to no room by the curb, but they appear to have forgotten one crucial thing — folding it renders it totally undrivable. 

This folding car would be great. If it wasn't totally flawed.
This folding car would be great. If it wasn’t totally flawed.

The Armadillo-T behaves in much the same manner as the leather-armoured placental mammal from which it borrows its name. The electric car mimics the animal’s defence behaviour by rolling itself up into a ball, but only when the driver and passenger have vacated the interior.

This means anyone parking it would first have to find a space big enough to accommodate its full length before then getting out and folding it away. This obviously frees up space or other cars to park in, but what happens when people park too close to folded Armadillo-T? Its rear half obscures both its doors and its windscreen so you can’t get in again. And even if you could, you wouldn’t be able to see out of it or have any way of unfolding it and driving away. 

That’s a shame because fully folded, the Armadillo-T takes up just one-third of a 5-metre-long parking space, the standard parking space size in Korea, meaning three such vehicles could be parked simultaneously in a single bay.

Still, it’s a novel idea, and with with a little bit of tweaking, they might be onto something. Have a gander at it in the video below. Just don’t expect it to reach production any time soon.

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