If the title was not helpful in making you understand, what all this is about, well we'll make it simpler for you. For those who have watched, The Dark Knight, you must have seen how the Batmobile transforms into a Batpod. Conversion of 4 wheels, into two wheels - that's basically the idea and if you thought that was brilliant, well, Ford is planning to do something similar and we have got our hands on the patent that the company has filed for making this multi-modal transportation a possibility.
From what we can make out of the drawings, the idea is that the scooter fits right into the car and one can park the car and then take the scooter out for easing transport. For this the car has to either be an electric one so that it comes powered by hub-mounted motors or sees a rear-mounted petrol engine. The front section however, will need to be cleared for the scooter to be mounted inside. The two front wheels are mounted on separate supports altogether and hence there's no front cross-member. When you lift the bonnet and the front grille section, there's space for the electric scooter to slot backwards into it and this is pretty interesting. From the drawings one can notice that this has been envisioned in MPVs for the sheer the segment has to offer.
So, how will the scooter fit in the car. Well, scooter will fit into the front section of the cars as we already told you and goes all the way back into the cabin. The scooter's seat becomes the centre armrest and the instrument panel becomes the centre console. The patent even says that the car could be driven using the bike's wheels. Mind you, this last mile solution, only works on electric power.
While all that looks and sounds something straight from the future, there are those of you who might be wondering what's the purpose of all of this and will it work? Well the idea was conceived to decongest cities, so that parking would not be an issue. Frankly, if you think about it, it's a practical solution. For example, you can travel a most of the distance by car, but when you're closer to your office, you park your car, then transform it into a two-wheeler and take the final leg to the place where you work. So, it's all good in theory, but will it work in real world conditions? Well, we don't really know.
It's safe to say that the patents look promising and though it addresses quite a lot of concerns that one might have about carrying a bike in a car, this could be a viable solution for decongesting cities. We can't wait to see, what Ford will make out of this.
