There are no MacPherson struts or multilinks here. Hyundai’s new “Elevate” concept has four legs. With three knees each. And a hip. With a wheel at each end.
“Wheels with robotic legs allow users to drive, walk or even climb over the most treacherous terrain,” Hyundai said ahead of the craft’s Monday launch, which is planned for the carmaker’s press conference the day before CES opens. “This vehicle combines the power of robotics and EV technology to take people where no vehicle has been before. The four-legged Hyundai ‘Elevate’ will redefine our perception of vehicular mobility.”
In the drawing you can see four articulations, or knees, per wheel, if you start counting at the point where the legs join the body. That makes four knees per wheel, or 16 in all, possibly a vehicular record. You could also say it has three knees and a hip (consult your neighborhood orthopedic surgeon for the final word on this distinction). At the end of each leg is a solid wheel with a rubber tire.
The Elevate is powered by electricity and guided by robotics, which suggests some autonomous operation, if not full autonomy. That would mean it could go into areas of, say, high radiation or into a toxic volcano cone, for instance.
In the one drawing Hyundai released, the Elevate is shown with a big red cross on the side working its way through a scene of urban disaster, suggesting one use for such technology. How and whether any of that will actually work is left to our collective imaginations at the moment. Hyundai will release more information during its pre-CES press conference on Monday afternoon in Las Vegas.
Production plans are not likely on the immediate horizon, though, since, in the teaser released ahead of the big Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, Hyundai called the Elevate a “design concept and prototype.”
More to come…
Source: Read Full Article