Ford patented a convertible car with a built-in electric unicycle

Ford published US patent 9,211,932 last week , the application for which was filed back in June last year. The company has patented an unexpected two-in-one transformer concept. As planned, the rear wheel of the car is an autonomous electric motor that can be disconnected and put on the axis of a small unicycle. The unicycle chassis is proposed to be stored in the trunk of a car.

Thus, according to the idea of ​​the authors of the idea, a person can drive to a parking lot by car, then remove an electric unicycle without a wheel from the trunk, put a wheel on it from the car (automatic jacking of the car and removing the wheels with a light hand movement are also thought out), and go further already in small-sized transport (reminiscent of the existing one-wheeled RYNO electric motorcycle ). An option is also provided in which the wheel does not need an additional chassis, but works as a single-wheel counterpart to the Segway - Solowheel , which has already gone on sale .



The idea of ​​using the rear wheel of the car instead of, for example, a spare wheel, most likely, is that the battery for the electric unicycle is in the same wheel - and therefore it can be recharged while the car is moving. In addition, a nice bonus is the protection against theft of a car without a single wheel.



The idea of ​​combining a car with a unicycle was to come to engineers after obviously unsuccessful attempts to penetrate these strange devices into the personal transport market. Heavy, slow and with a small power reserve on a single charge, they look pretty useless - much worse than the same bike. In this regard, the idea of ​​driving a long distance on a car and then making a small jerk on another vehicle looks a little better. Although, wouldn’t it be more convenient, simpler and cheaper, and in this case a simple folding bike?