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Designer brings bumper cars to city driving

By | March 7, 2012, 4:00 AM PST

Many of us look back fondly on those days when the only driving we did involved ramming full speed into others - usually as part of a big round of bumper cars. Thanks to a new green city car concept by designer Ayelet Fishman, adults may be tempted to do just that.

The Compact Urban Bump Car (CUB) is an all-electric two-seater built for city driving. Specifically, it comes outfitted with five energy-absorbing bumpers: one for each corner of the car, and one for its rear. The panels are detachable and can be removed as needed.

Fishman says she wanted to build a car “that copes with urban transportation problems such as driving in traffic jams, lack of space, parking problems and especially parking damages.”

Measuring only 91 inches long and 71 inches wide, the CUB’s design features several other intriguing touches: it has no dashboard, so the (literally) front door slides up over the car (see photo above). It has no steering wheel: instead the CUB is driven via a joystick controlled by a drive-by-wire system. The car has charging ports on both sides, and instead of obtrusive side-view mirrors, Fishman installed around-view mirrors to do the job.

But beware: drivers may be tempted to take out their frustration on other cars - but beware, while this one might remain unscathed upon contact, the offending car may not (and that might prove to be even more of a headache).

Photo: Ayelet Fishman

via [EarthTechling]

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Channtal Fleischfresser

About Channtal Fleischfresser

Channtal Fleischfresser is a contributing editor for SmartPlanet.

Channtal Fleischfresser

Channtal Fleischfresser

Contributing Editor

Channtal Fleischfresser has worked for The Economist, WNET/Channel 13, Al Jazeera English, Wall Street Journal and Associated Press. She holds degrees from the University of Pennsylvania and the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism. She is based in New York.

Follow her on Twitter.

Channtal Fleischfresser

Channtal Fleischfresser

Channtal does not have financial holdings that would influence how or what she covers.

She writes for SmartPlanet and is not an employee of CBS.

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These 5 bumpers designed doesnt seem to be very protective.
These 5 bumpers designed doesnt seem to be very protective.....Doesn't seem to be intelligent at all when safety comes in!The last gen A-Class Merc. Is much much more intelligent and I heard that Merc was selling electric A-Class in limited market.
Posted by Aman16588
7th Mar 2012
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Ugly design, familiar bumpers.
That is a horrible design to start with. But the grey bumpers do remind me of older car design. I was thinking about how older cars had grey bumpers designed for vehicles to actual bump protection. Now, bumpers are designed to mess seamlessly with a car, making them rather useless. Before a bum would be a bump, now a bump is a $1000 repair, minimum. I'd be happy to see the older bumper designs return to current vehicle models. It would make bumpers useful again.
Posted by DimeDrl
7th Mar 2012
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