Hyundai: E4U Egg Car & Fluidic Sculpture in Motion

Hyundai has already made it clear that 2013 will be about ‘Brand Awareness’ rather than releasing a new raft of models and chasing ever increasing sales, so two Hyundai outings in the last week can be put down to their targeted aim of profile raising.

In Milan, Hyundai are taking part in the Milan Design Week by showing an innovative light sculpture that has been inspired by Hyundai’s ‘Fluidic Design’ (even though Hyundai have already said that ‘Fluidic Design’ is being replaced by ‘Fluidic Precision’ as they aim to make their designs ‘cleaner) with an installation made up of 12,000 translucent spheres acting collectively on a screen, surrounded by high-power lasers and suspended over a pool of water.

The ‘performance’ starts with virtual rain created by the lasers which form three-dimensional shapes, followed by an interactive segment where human interaction creates three-dimensional images by scanning for body warmth so visitors can manipulate what they see by using gestures.

It’s all very clever – and very pretty – although how exactly it drives the Hyundai brand, we’re not sure.

On a more practical front – well, that’s debatable, but it is a ‘real’ product – Hyundai are out in force at the IDEA Festival in Korea with ideas for future mobility.

Probably the most interesting is the E4U – a sort of encased Segway – that gets its name from the 4 ‘Es’ Hyundai has used to create the E4U – Egg, Evolution, Electricity and Eco-friendliness.

The E4U is designed for low speeds on narrow urban roads with the speed and steering controlled with an electric motor by the driver’s movements – just like a Segway does – and can be folded up for easy parking  It weighs just 80kg and can hit 15mph, although whether it’s any more likely to be a viable urban transport than the Segway is debatable.

But it wasn’t just the Hyundai Egg on show, Hyundai had a raft of ideas including:

A multi-rotor flying car - powered by four electric motors and propellers which means the car can hover above the ground, keeping the driver above congestion A spare tyre electric bike - a spare tyre that quickly folds out into an electric bike. Can be used in the event of a puncture when traffic is heavy, or can be used for leisure A portable transforming car –you can carry this around with you and driver can control it with their brain waves using mind control A five-jointed car–has five joints giving driver great flexibility to manoeuvre around tight spaces – driver only need a one metre radius to turn. The joints also enable the car to climb up steps! A road car/ bike –recognises the owner’s voice so they can talk to the car using a wireless head set – can be told to change seating position which will turn the car into a bike  A wind bike –main motor powered by four batteries, propellers powered by the wind

Hyundai are obviously enjoying ‘playing’ at the moment. Hopefully they’ll get back to the real stuff before too long.

By Cars UK