MIT Media Lab City Car could be our automobile future

MIT Media Lab showed off this particular CityCar at a conference lately, and it is very good. Just to let you know, it is still a concept, but it should be full-sized and in production in about 2013.

You can watch a video of it after the jump, and you can see that it has a very unusual folding ability. The folding is perfect for city parking places, where space is an issue. Just think how much less room these cars would take up in comparison to full size cars of today!

The folding also serves a secondary purpose as it allows the driver to get into the car standing instead of that acute or obtuse angle that one does when getting in the driver’s seat of ordinary vehicles.

In addition to these amazing abilities, the CityCar can turn its wheels at extremely odd angles. You can see in the video that the wheels can turn inward so the vehicle can make “O-turns”.

Oh man, I can just see a future where big cities are full of cars like these! It would be like everyone owning a SmartCar, but smaller. This would make a mini-van seem like a semi with these kinds of standards. Right now, my mind is filling with images of science-fiction future cities, without the dystopian shadows.

Source: Engadget