Hyundai has been busy experimenting with novel car designs, inviting teams of internal designers to create a new wave of commuter vehicles aimed at improving mobility in congested cities.
Its IDEA festival, an internal competition to find weird and wonderful new car designs, will kick off later this year and if last year’s entries are anything to go by, we should expect all manner of improbable yet awesome new vehicle concepts.
Entries at its 2012 IDEA festival included a flying car with sixteen rotors, a car whose motorised spare wheel could be attached to an electric bicycle, a portable transforming car and a bike powered by the wind.
The most eye-catching of last year’s bunch was definitely the multi-rotor flying car. This bonkers creation, powered by four electric motors and sixteen propellers, bears a resemblance to the Parrot AR Drone, a flying, iPhone-powered quadricopter, with four times the number of rotors and a driver’s seat in the middle.
Demonstrated with a crash test dummy for obvious safety reasons, the flying car could allow drivers (or should that be pilots) to hover above the ground, sailing past congestion, although we can’t imagine it’d be much fun to use in windy weather.
2012’s spare tyre electric bike was equally mesmerising. The concept could be used as an ordinary spare tyre that fits a car, but it could also be attached the rear of an electric bike. The idea was that it could be used in the event of a puncture to get the driver to safety, to help him commute the final few hundred yards to his location, or simply for leisure purposes.
Hyundai staff are due to begin submitting ideas for the 2013 Idea Festival this month, with this year’s theme being ‘R&D for Customers’, focussing on how to meet customers’ future needs. Each winning team will turn its ideas into working prototypes and showcase them in September this year. Here’s hoping the’re as awesome as the 2012 concepts.
We’ll keep you posted on the best developments as they’re unearthed.
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