It launched the marketing campaign in Chinese automobile market named as PEOPLE’S CAR PROJECT to share the ideas for future cars and the participants of this campaign submitted their ideas and designs of the models of the future cars on Volkswagen website. Volkswagen amazingly surprised the whole world by introducing the concept of hovercars in 2011. It has been surprising the world with its all-new concepts since the time it came into being by introducing pure ethanol vehicles, flexible fuel vehicles, hybrid vehicles, plug-in electric vehicles and the all amazing SUVs. China is the biggest market for Volkswagen because 40 per cent of its sales and profits are delivered by the Chinese market. The views expressed are those of the author(s) and are not necessarily those of Scientific American.Volkswagen has been ruling the world since 1937 and it was declared the largest automobile company according to its worldwide sales in 20. Still, after seeing the video VW put together, who wouldn't want to take Jia's hover car for a spin? These could accommodate more passengers while providing greater coverage than maglev trains confined to specific guideways. Perhaps the solution, then, isn't cars propelled along by electromagnetic energy but rather city buses that can make use of this technology. "I'm OK with that, but you're still going to need a rechargeable battery or some form of energy to power this vehicle, and the initial investment in a maglev infrastructure for the car would be substantial." The only vehicles that would benefit from such an infrastructure investment would be the hover cars themselves-wheeled vehicles running on combustion engines or batteries would still need well-maintained roads.Īs imaginative as the VW hover car is, Holguín-Veras says, mass transit is still the best option for urban populations in the future as city populations swell and traffic congestion grows. "You could argue that, because there's less friction, the hover car would be more efficient than fuel-powered vehicles with tires, brakes and other mechanism," says José Holguín-Veras, a professor of civil and environmental engineering at Rensselaer Polytechnic University. Of course, for VW's hover car to work in practice, it would have to cost less to run than an ordinary car, and experts question whether that is possible in the foreseeable future. To add a bit of realism in one scene, a discarded can in the roadway rolls away from the car as it passes by. The narrator points out a number of the imaginary car's features, including a joystick controller, auto-pilot, and a collision-avoidance sensor. In the video, Jia's parents take the wheel-shaped hover car out for a spin through Chengdu. As portrayed in the video ( see below), the vehicle would be about two meters in diameter and about 1.5 meters wide. "We built a one-quarter scale model of the car and used a bit of creative filmmaking to show how it would work," Loasby says. In their video, Volkswagen designers envision a scenario where magnetic iron rock or ore beneath Chengdu help create the car's levitation alternatively, the minerals could be mined and mixed in with the tarmac. What keeps maglev vehicles from gaining widespread use is the need to set up an infrastructure of electromagnetic rails and roads. Magnets on board and in the track lift the train between eight and 12 millimeters, depending on how much electrical current is used. (Other maglev trains use electromagnetic forces for propulsion without actually lifting the train off the ground.) The Shanghai Maglev Train has been ferrying passengers since 2004 on a 30-kilometer line between Pudong International Airport and the city's outskirts at speeds of up to 430 kilometers per hour. The imaginary car stays aloft with the aid of magnetic levitation, much the way some maglev trains travel along special rails using electromagnetic suspension. "It was the ultimate in dreaming because a full-scale version of the car doesn't exist." "We put a concept together, including a video depicting how it would function," he adds. Jia sent sketches of a levitating car that could be maneuvered easily in a downtown setting, says Simon Loasby, head of design at Volkswagen Group China. Wang Jia, a student and resident of Chengdu in the country's Sichuan province, chose the latter, envisioning a two-person environmentally-friendly hover car. Participants were able to tinker with designs on a Web site that Volkswagen set up for that purpose, or they could upload their own designs. A year ago, Volkswagen in China launched a marketing campaign called The People's Car Project (PCP), which invited Chinese customers to submit ideas for cars of the future.
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