Electric Vehicle Concept Could Drive In Floods
In a world with rapidly melting polar ice and rising sea levels, you want to be sure your car can still, you know, car in the event that you wake up and there’s 3 feet of water covering the streets of your neighborhood. If that seems like a reasonable sentence to you, then, buddy — have I got your car! It’s called the Fomm, and it’s here to keep you motoring through even the nastiest urban floods.
Really.
For their part, the guys behind the Fomm concept developed a power train for their little fjord-forder, using purpose-built in-wheel electric motors placed within each of the front wheels of the “Concept One” show car. Each motor develops about 280Nm (or 205 lb-ft) of torque, giving the 1000 lb. buggy a massive 400+ lb. ft of torque (!!). Once the floodwaters rise, the Fomm gets around using a water-jet system similar to those employed by JetSkis.
To be totally fair, the silly little car buit to avoid rising sea levels actually does has a serious purpose: ferrying people in and out of cities in SouthEast Asia that are prone to heavy flooding and tsunamis. If it works, it’ll be a fantastic thing out there — but until someone actually sees it work, I’ll keep calling Fomm’s Concept One the Waterworld of future car concepts.
Source | Photos: TechVehi.
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