Swiss automobile manufacturer Rinspeed first demonstrated its ‘Snap’ and ‘microSNAP’ vehicles at CES in Las Vegas two years ago – an autonomous vehicle that most mobility-event-goers have seen, thanks to multiple appearances at other major events around the world such as IAA Frankfurt’s New Mobility World.
With a revolutionary design that allows the separation of the two-vehicle components, Rinspeed confronts the increasingly diverging life cycles of hardware and software. And by doing so, creates a sustainable foundation for the transport of people and goods in the world of tomorrow.
Rinspeed founder Frank M. Rinderknecht believes that the future belongs to modular mobility systems, which is evident when you look at the sheer number of imitators in the industry that have followed suit.
However, what puts Rinspeed at an advantage is that the company is focused on its systems making economic sense in order to gain broad acceptance. With the MetroSnap, Rinderknecht and his team have designed a simple, fast, safe and inexpensive swapping system, which has now been filed for patent protection.
These modular vehicles can help solve modern mobility problems, which have snuck up on the world through the influx of technology within the transport sector. Now that people are starting to realise that autonomous driving and smart cities have become a very real thing, not to mention the need to reduce congestion and pollution in urban environments, the need for multi-purpose vehicles has reached an all-time-high.
Flexibility of this scale will directly solve these problems as, ultimately, this means fewer vehicles on the road and, therefore, better efficiency within cities.
The skateboard architecture of the MicroSNAP allows the batteries to be split from the pod, which means that the vehicle does not need to be parked for charging. Rinderknecht refers to this as “Hot Swap,” where swapping process takes a matter of seconds. In fact, the vehicle is ready to go almost as quickly as a racecar after a pit stop.
“People desire ever more convenience and simplicity in their lives, and we want to make this possible with our innovative transport solutions,” says Rinderknecht.
The world premiere of the MetroSnap will be on January 7, 2020, at the CES in Las Vegas.
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