Bubble cars are on the way back

30 September 2005

Peugeot MoovieAt the recent Frankfurt motor show, Peugeot showed off Moovie, a near-spherical plexiglass-bodied car with giant hoops for rear wheels, with passengers entering and exiting via sliding doors that double as giant hubcaps. Not a proposal for a real car, sadly, but some admirable out-of-the-box thinking about packaging.
At the upcoming Tokyo show, Nissan will show of Pivo, a car in two parts – a spherical passenger compartment mounted on a trolley-like wheeled base, with the passenger pod able to swivel about a vertical pivot (hence the Pivo name, presumably). The idea is that instead of craning your neck and glancing at mirrors while reversing, you instead spin the pod around 180 degrees so that the car is suddenly facing in the opposite direction – without moving a tyre.
The lithium-ion-battery powered Pivo also incorporates a variety of other interesting technologies:

The three-seater car comes with a number of user-friendly technologies, including Nissan's Around View Monitor which reduces blind spots by displaying the outside surroundings on screens mounted on the inside of the car's A-pillars located on either side of the windshield. A dash-mounted infrared (IR) commander allows the driver to operate the navigation and stereo systems with simple finger movements without letting go of the steering wheel.

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