A different riff on your basic two-seat electric car

Markus Lienkamp, Chair of Automotive Engineering at the Technical University of Munich, is leading the Visio.M project, a German government-supported R&D effort to produce a low-cost, high-utility electric car that might attract the interest of the middle European mass market.

THE WAY MARKUS LIENKAMP SEES IT, today's electric car technology “is a complete disaster.” What he terms “electromobility” is impeded at the moment by range anxiety, prohibitive costs, and inconvenient charging. “And a lot of people are losing a lot of money on electric cars,” noted the Chair of Automotive Engineering at the Technical University of Munich (TUM).

That's why Lienkamp is leading the Visio.M project, a German government-sup ported R&D effort to produce a low-cost, high-utility electric car that might attract the interest of the middle European mass market-a next-generation people's car of sorts. “The idea was to take an integrated approach using appropriate high-tech solutions to produce an inexpensive product that still provides high levels of design and function,” he explained.