I loved LEGOS back in “the day”. I would spend hours upon hours building and looking for just the right pieces to complete my architectural nightmare. Then I would always knock it down in my terrifying rendition of Godzilla, just ’cause. LEGOS are still awesome, but you can’t exactly live in a house made of them as James May of Top Gear proved.
Anyway, the whole LEGOS analogy is the first thing I thought of when I read about the Trexa EV platform. It is basically a completely integrated, all-wheel drive electric skateboard that you can build your own kind of car upon. Pretty freakin’ cool, right?
I’ve seen something like this before from GM, except it was a hydrogen skateboard, but the premise is the same. Everything needed to make the car move is built into this skateboard system. The difference between GM’s system and the Trexa system is that Trexa let’s you build your own car from a smörgåsbord of pieces. Kinda like LEGOS.
Such a level of customization in today’s cars is unheard of, and the Trexa platform offers the benefit of integrating everything into an electric vehicle platform. The idea is to offer the skateboard in varying sizes from 64″ to 96″. Uh, 96 inches? That is about the wheelbase (the distance in between the front and rear wheels) of a Ford Ka… which is really, really tiny. That could be a problem for some people.
But the rest of the Trexa sounds pretty good, like the 4 hour charge time, and a driving distance of up to 125 miles. Plus, it would be really awesome if you could go to the dealership and actually snap together your own car. It probably wouldn’t be that simple. But it would be fun I’m willing to bet, at least until I got in trouble for trying to Godzilla other peoples cars.
Forget for a second that this is probably just a rendering on a computer right now. What kind of tiny car would you build? I’m thinking a one seater club racer, or a mini-convertible for dipping around town.
Source: Inhabitat | Images: Trexa
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About Christopher DeMorro
This isn’t too dissimilar from what made the chassis “pans” of VW beetles such great platforms for kit cars.
This isn’t too dissimilar from what made the chassis “pans” of VW beetles such great platforms for kit cars.
Re the Trexa EV concept, as a grad student in Industrial Design back in the ’70s, I did an Independent Study as a joint project with an EE major who was passionately involved with electric transportation. He assumed the engineering / electrical component design, and I provided the product design function. We developed a universal chassis, onto which I designed various solutions – a 5-door passenger vehicle, a 2-door sports coup, a minivan, a commercial small footprint delivery truck.
Although this effort was 30 years ago, it is gratifying to see these rational, “futuristic” concepts finally come to fruition.
Chuck Scifers
chucks@gmail.com
Re the Trexa EV concept, as a grad student in Industrial Design back in the ’70s, I did an Independent Study as a joint project with an EE major who was passionately involved with electric transportation. He assumed the engineering / electrical component design, and I provided the product design function. We developed a universal chassis, onto which I designed various solutions – a 5-door passenger vehicle, a 2-door sports coup, a minivan, a commercial small footprint delivery truck.
Although this effort was 30 years ago, it is gratifying to see these rational, “futuristic” concepts finally come to fruition.
Chuck Scifers
chucks@gmail.com
What it’s incredible is that more than 100 years from the Model T, the man fly, touched the moon, send objects to the end of solar system… and still makes de cars like old times… haven’t we learnt anything from making computers, mobile phones, etc… ?
What it’s incredible is that more than 100 years from the Model T, the man fly, touched the moon, send objects to the end of solar system… and still makes de cars like old times… haven’t we learnt anything from making computers, mobile phones, etc… ?
Excellent idea. You will, however, find that the product is called Lego – no s on the end.
Excellent idea. You will, however, find that the product is called Lego – no s on the end.
Nice concept. Although, their web site sucks. No explaination on the technical aspect of the driving portion of the vehicle. Designing a shell is not the problem. I am more concern about the guts, prices and specs. There are lots of unknown with the thing.
Nice concept. Although, their web site sucks. No explaination on the technical aspect of the driving portion of the vehicle. Designing a shell is not the problem. I am more concern about the guts, prices and specs. There are lots of unknown with the thing.
I am thinking Thunderbirds are Go, International Rescue, specifically Thunderbird 2. Okay you have different bodies for different purposes lined up inside the TB2 bay, a sporty red coupe, a pickup, and a minivan all swapped just in time for the mission at hand. Sort of like TB2 but inside out though.
It does beg the question $ and delivery, and could one even swap bodies on demand.
I am thinking Thunderbirds are Go, International Rescue, specifically Thunderbird 2. Okay you have different bodies for different purposes lined up inside the TB2 bay, a sporty red coupe, a pickup, and a minivan all swapped just in time for the mission at hand. Sort of like TB2 but inside out though.
It does beg the question $ and delivery, and could one even swap bodies on demand.