Although there are a lot of cool electric vehicles all around the market, I bet you haven’t seen an electric ride that looks like a 13-inch MacBook Pro. Well, the “Walkcar” is a new kind of electric vehicle that works like a skateboard and looks like a laptop. Just think about it, whenever you’re not feeling like walking, you can just pull the “Walkcar” out your laptop bag and start riding around.
Created by a Japanese startup, Cocoa Motors, the “Walkcar” is an innovative electric vehicle with a hefty price tag. And it is only available for the residents of Japan, as of now. The company used carbon fiber and aircraft-grade aluminum to manufacture the vehicle. It also comes with a coat of “self-healing” paint that prevents scratches and marks on the board.
Now, the specialty of the “Walkcar” is obviously its form factor. The thing exactly looks like a laptop with four wheels attached. The front wheels are controlled by, what the company claims, the “smallest in-wheel motor”. Cocoa Motors spent over five years to develop this special motor for the electric “portable car”.
It also has an array of sensors baked into the deck of the device. These sensors are responsible for the auto-braking feature that stops the motor as soon as a rider steps down from the “Walkcar”. These sensors also help the rider in navigating the laptop-like skateboard.
However, the “Walkcar” is not something that you can use for a long ride. It has two modes — Normal and Sport. Because of its form factor and power consumption, the electric skateboard can only go for 7 km (~4.3 miles) in normal mode and 5 km (~3 miles) in sport mode on a single charge. It has a 68Wh rechargeable battery that goes from 0-100% in an hour. So, this is more like your go-out-to-get-groceries kind of vehicle.
Now, there is no word on launching this product in countries other than Japan. This seems highly unlikely because of the price. It costs around ¥198,000 (~$1,840) or Rs 1,40,175. At this price, people could buy a pretty nice motorbike rather than getting a vehicle that runs for such short distances.
Nonetheless, if you’re living in Japan somewhere, you can check it out on its official website.
