The changing nature of city life and the changing demands of residents has helped to spark a revolution in automotive development. As governments around the world commit to electrification of cars and other vehicles, the market for true “urban space” mobility is increasing. One of the top contenders in this now competitive field is City Transformer, an electric vehicle that is so much more than meets the eye.
Designed and built for the urban space
The City Transformer (CT) is not just a compact and stylish electric folding vehicle. It is one that promises to live up to its name — a transformer of the city landscape. In a world where roads and city parking lots are clogged with excess traffic, the CT is the flexible and adaptable solution that promises to give everyone more room to breathe.
The CT is an all-electric vehicle that offers the regular driving mode with speeds of up to 90km/h (56mph), and a narrow mode with speeds of up to 45km/h (28mph). It’s built on a versatile autonomous-ready platform. It has a closed cabin and seating for the driver and one passenger (front-rear seating arrangement).
Patented technology
Small as it is, the CT is packed with incredible technology, most notably the patented folding system. When you set the car to driving mode, the wheels extend outwards to create a width similar to that of a regular passenger car. This allows for the greater speeds we talked about above for regular driving. When space is tighter, however, you can then pull the wheels back in, making the CT narrow enough to park in motorcycle-only spaces.
That’s a whole new world of parking opened up to you in an ever-constricting city driving environment. Technology in the CT isn’t just about making parking easier, too. The entire driving experience is enhanced with a simple and intuitive digital driver interface. This makes it an ideal candidate for ride-sharing schemes.
No parking? No problem
CT is built by experts who know all too well that busy streets are here to stay. We will always have to share the urban space with many others. CT is a tool to help make that experience easier, especially when it comes to parking. Using the patented folding mechanism on the CT, you can make the vehicle slim enough to fit in the most compact spaces there are.
Using the mechanism, you can go from 148cm wide in driving mode down to 100cm in parking mode. The tight turning circle of just 5.5m also enhances this mobility, allowing you to maneuver in truly difficult spots.
All-electric powertrain
The CT is powered by lithium-ion batteries of up to 14kWh, which is paired with a 15kW electric motor. That means you can fully charge at home in about 4 to 6 hours. Or in a lightning-like 15 minutes if you use a fast charger at a public charging station. Fast charging and all-electric powertrain mean a cleaner city environment for us all to enjoy, and greater viability in electric transport not hindered by slow charge times.
The City Transformer is set to roll out and is already available for pre-order by making a deposit of $180. The current basic CT unit is priced at $US13,000 including battery and VAT (other local taxes may apply). This is patented innovation that can deliver on positively altering the urban automotive landscape.
Startup
A startup or start-up is a company or project undertaken by an entrepreneur to seek, develop, and validate a scalable business model. While entrepreneurship refers to all new businesses, including self-employment and businesses that never intend to become registered, startups refer to new businesses that intend to grow large beyond the solo founder. At the beginning, startups face high uncertainty and have high rates of failure, but a minority of them do go on to be successful and influential. Some startups become unicorns; that is privately held startup companies valued at over US$1 billion.
Actions
Startups typically begin by a founder (solo-founder) or co-founders who have a way to solve a problem. The founder of a startup will begin market validation by problem interview, solution interview, and building a minimum viable product (MVP), i.e. a prototype, to develop and validate their business models. The startup process can take a long period of time (by some estimates, three years or longer), and hence sustaining effort is required. Over the long term, sustaining effort is especially challenging because of the high failure rates and uncertain outcomes. Having a business plan in place outlines what to do and how to plan and achieve an idea in the future. Typically, these plans outline the first 3 to 5 years of your business strategy.
Design principles
Models behind startups presenting as ventures are usually associated with design science. Design science uses design principles considered to be a coherent set of normative ideas and propositions to design and construct the company's backbone. For example, one of the initial design principles is "affordable loss".
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