Amazing MIT Electric Car Folds Itself Up Whenever You Park

With urban areas becoming more congested, the bane of a driver’s life is when they spend ages looking for a parking space that doesn’t seem to exist. Yet a new concept car could solve this problem for urban dwellers as well as being environmentally friendly.

The Hiriko, the Basque word for ‘urban’, was originally a MIT concept car that had been in development since 2006, but recently a working model of the Hiriko was unveiled in Brussels a few days ago. Consisting of four independent electrical motors – one dedicated to each wheel – the car can reach a maximum of 90km/h and travel a distance of 120 km on a single charge. Drivers also have the option to set a speed limit on the car so that they don’t break a city’s speed limit.

However, the car’s main appeal is the ability to fold itself up, creating an upright parking manoeuvre that allows it to park in the tightest of spaces. Also, it has the ability to spin around on its axis for virtually no turning ratio, due to the four electrical motors it has. This also gives it the ability to move sideways and parallel park which will save its drivers a lot of time and effort trying to manoeuvre into a tight space.

The Hiriko is to hit the European markets at the end of 2013 with Spain being the first country to get its hands on it. Other cities that will see the car during its trial run include Berlin, Boston, Hong Kong, Malmo and San Francisco. With its cost estimated at €12,500, the Hiriko is a car we could be seeing a lot more of in the future.