To fill the niche of “Short-Range Urban Transport, GM designed the EN-V where roads are tighter and space is limited. But driving distances are shorter than rural or suburban trips. It’s about half the length of a Smart Car and Weighs only 900 lbs.

1. The Car of the Future - EN-V<br />To fill the niche of “Short-Range Urban Transport, GM designed the EN-V where roads are tighter and space is limited. But driving distances are shorter than rural or suburban trips. It’s about half the length of a Smart Car and Weighs only 900 lbs.<br />GM designed the EN-V, which had its North American debut last week at CES, to fill the niche of short-range urban transport,<br />where roads are tighter and parking space is limited, but driving distances are shorter than rural or suburban trips.<br />It’s about half the length of a Smart car and weighs only 900 lbs.<br />Each model – Miao, Jiao, and Xiao – has its own unique style and color,<br />but they all have two-seat cabins fitted onto a two-wheel base, co-designed by Segway.<br />The base provides extreme mobility and allows the car to do cool things, like turn in place.<br />It’s powered by a lithium-ion battery pack, and it uses gyroscopic sensors to balance the car’s weight and detect the direction and angle of tilt. <br />The sensors can also independently rotate the wheels forward or backward as needed for balance and propulsion.<br />Don’t worry – test drivers have said that when you’re driving, you can’t feel any tilting or wheel movement.<br />Perhaps the coolest feature of the EN-V is its communication system.<br />It uses sonar to detect pedestrians, other cars, and cyclists, and a slew of other gadgets – cameras, GPS, car-to-car communication – combined with the sonar allow the car to drive all by itself.<br />Plus, you’ll never have to worry about searching for a parking space ever again. With a smartphone, you could simply program your EN-V to park itself and return to you when you need it.<br />Unfortunately, we won’t see the EN-V on the road for quite some time.<br />GM says it’ll be another 20 or 30 years before consumers really need this type of car, but we’re glad to see they’re thinking ahead.<br />