New foldable Urban Car Concept

A growing demand for individual mobility, increasing number of cars and rising car dimensions require actions to improve the parking situation in urban areas. One way to scope with this challenge includes the implementation of new vehicle and transportation concepts, which focus on the substitution of conventional passenger cars. Alternative vehicle packaging and new chassis, propulsion and suspension technologies are capable to fulfill specific parking and important customer requirements at the same time. In this paper, current urban car concepts with variable wheelbase technologies are investigated and a car concept including novel variable wheelbase mechanism and a new packaging solution for three passengers (EvoCare), is presented. The development of such vehicle and suspension concepts challenges common processes and requires multidisciplinary interaction of different disciplines, e.g. kinematics simulation, vehicle packaging, ergonomics & comfort, propulsion system layout, as well as driving dynamics and driving stability investigations. In this context, the novel suspension mechanism for the folding process is introduced and discussed. Furthermore, the required parking space and resulting costumer benefits of the concept are analyzed and illustrated by a comparison of different vehicle types in the target class.