A revolutionary electric car prototype being developed at Otago Polytechnic was on show in Dunedin yesterday and reporter Vaughan Elder took it for a spin.
At almost two metres tall, I found the hardest part about getting behind the wheel of the prototype electric car was squeezing through the door.
Once inside, the car was surprisingly easy to drive and my fears of crashing and spectacularly ruining the years of hard work put into the prototype quickly subsided.
The most uncanny thing about driving the car - which has four separate electrically powered wheels, each able to steer independently - was stepping on the gas once the wheels were in-place for a U-turn.
Rather than making a U-turn, the car spun 180 degrees on the spot. The car is a collaboration between the polytechnic, the National Taiwan University of Science and Technology and China's Shenzhen Polytechnic. Students and staff from all three institutions have worked to perfect its design. Members of the public were given a chance to view the car in action in a polytechnic car park yesterday.
Once I was behind the wheel, and carefully following the instructions of Taiwan's Shih-Sheng Chen sitting beside me, I could turn on angles impossible in the average car, and even drive sideways.
Rather than using the steering wheel to perform these feats, I merely had to push a button and then the computer-controlled wheels did the rest of the work. When taking not-so-sharp corners, or driving in a straight line, the steering wheel is used to control the vehicle.
Otago Polytechnic programme manager and research co-ordinator Dr Tom Qi's dream is to see a car using the same technology produced by a manufacturer and sold to the masses, for between $10,000 and $10,500.
The next step for Dr Qi and his team was to get the prototype approved for use on New Zealand roads, which he hoped would be finished by the end of this year.
The team would also work on perfecting the car. It would be at least two years before anyone could buy a vehicle using the technology.
It was hoped the final design would be able to reach speeds up to 100kmh and travel more than 100km before needing to be recharged.