Squad Mobility has just officially announced its project – a two-person small car, which, among other things, has photovoltaic cells located on the roof.
Squad is a solar-powered tiny electric car with a simplistic design and is intended to be a low-cost alternative to other electric vehicles. It has retractable doors, wide windows and a solar panel on the roof that generates enough energy to drive 20 kilometers each day. It should be sufficient for average daily commuting. There is also a replacement battery that extends the range to 100 kilometers. The batteries can be charged at home from the socket or replaced at charging stations. Two engines will deliver 5 kilometers of power and a peak speed of 45 kilometers per hour.
Behind the design of Squad stands Mateusz Tomiczek – Polish designer, who collaborated on the creation of electric cars before, such as the Lightyear One. Mateusz wanted the vehicle to maintain an attractive price and to be able to compete with two-wheelers. The car was a great stylistic challenge also due to the interior, which needed be as functional and simple as possible, and made of materials that are easy to clean.
Squad is much smaller than classic cars, which on average take up to 10 sqm of parking space. It only needs a quarter of this space, which means that up to three such cars could stand side by side in one parking space. The regulations of most European cities, according to the manufacturer, allow Squad to park on motorbike parking spaces.
The company is also working on a four-person version, but no date has been set for when it will be shown. The car will be offered for EUR 6,250 at first.
Personally, the design does not convince me, however Squad could be a great solution for moving around a large city, where finding a parking space is almost impossible. What do you think about that idea?
Cars like this are already well adopted in the Netherlands. (see: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canta_(vehicle) ). Their main purpose was to let disabled people easily commute through cities, but now it also solves the problem of parking spots and traffic jams. These cars look little bit funny, but I definitely agree that they are useful for inhabitants of urban areas. I wonder how would it be adopted in Poland? Can you imagine all of BMW and Mercedes people to switch to cars like this to commute to Kozmin? ?
That is a really interesting concept. I wonder how it would change the commute in a big city to use only cars of this size. Maybe it would be even possible to convert existing park space into a bigger number, due to the small vehicle size.
What a great concept! When such cars will also exist in 4-seat version, this will completely be adapted for any urban travels, including family travels. The parking space savings that are made are amazing for busy metropolitans where parking is a real challenge!