Nissan Pivo Concept

http://www.cnn.com/2005/AUTOS/09/30/nissan_concept.reut/index.html

Quote

Don't like parking? Try Pivo

Cabin for Nissan's concept car rotates 360 degrees on top of platform, eliminates need to reverse.
September 30, 2005; Posted: 3:15 p.m. EDT (1915 GMT)

TOKYO (Reuters) - Tired of all those three-point turns? Nissan Motor Co. could have a solution.

Japan's second-biggest auto manufacturer has developed a concept car featuring an egg-shaped cabin atop a wheeled platform that can swivel 360 degrees, doing away with the need to reverse when emerging from narrow spaces.

"With this feature, parking in tight spots is a cinch," chief designer Masato Inoue told reporters at a sneak preview of the bubble-shaped, three-seater electric car this week.

The car, named Pivo after the word "pivot," operates on an experimental system called drive-by-wire, which eliminates the mechanical linkages between cabin and chassis to enable steering, braking and shifting through electronic signals.

The system is the car's version of fly-by-wire technology, which has controlled commercial jets for more than a decade.

Nissan will showcase the Pivo at the Tokyo Motor Show, which opens to the public Oct. 22.

At the preview this week in Zama city, near Tokyo, a driver slid the 2.7-meter-long (8-foot) Pivo into a tight imaginary parking spot, then rotated the cabin with the push of a button to face "backwards" to come out of the space in one motion.

"With the Pivo concept, we want to demonstrate the myriad possibilities that drive-by-wire could achieve," Inoue said.

Shiro Nakamura, Nissan's celebrity design chief, said Friday the real-world application of the concept could be but a decade away.

"Who knows, in 10 years our March (or Micra, subcompact car) could look like this," he said at a media event at Nissan's showroom in Tokyo's Ginza shopping district, where the car was being prepared for display to the public.

Other auto manufacturers such as General Motors Corp. and DaimlerChrysler AG have also developed drive-by-wire concept cars featuring cabin interiors that resemble cockpits.

Quirky concept cars are always crowd-pleasers at international motor shows, which auto manufacturers use to show off next-generation technology and draw attention to their newest production vehicles.

That's one funny-looking car.? But it's always interesting to see new car designs.

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