‘Car-in-a-bag’ will take you seven-and-a-half miles on three hours of charge

26-year-old engineer Kuniako Saito and his team at Cocoa Motors has unveiled a portable transporter that they refer to as the world’s first “car-in-a-bag”.

While the differences between “car” and “skateboard” are up to debate, one thing we can all agree on is Saito’s fairly ingenious design for this new form of portable transportation is pretty amazing.

The lithium battery-powered “WalkCar” is about the size of a laptop and because it’s mostly made of aluminum, this curious form of transporation weighs about five pounds (weight figure varies on whether you purchase the indoor or outdoor model). Despite its somewhat diminutive size, the board is actually pretty strong, and has so far proven capable of taking on loads of up to 265 pounds.

In terms of the riding experience, when the WalkCar is fully charged (three hours to complete from a state of empty), it can reach a top speed of 6.2 miles per hour for distances of up to 7.4 miles.

Saito explained that the WalkCar is very simple to ride: once the passenger stands on it, the board will start automatically; step off and the WalkCar immediately stops. To change direction, the rider merely shifts his / her weight. 

The young engineer said his studies in electric car motor control systems inspired him to come up with a new kind of ride. 

“I thought, ‘what if we could just carry our transportation in our bags, wouldn't that mean we'd always have our transportation with us to ride on?’ and my friend asked me to make one, since I was doing my masters in engineering specifically on electric car motor control systems,” he told Reuters.

Saito added that he believes his solution will go further than other somewhat similar devices like the Segway or Toyota’s Winglet.

“Maybe I just see it that way, but it seems to me that the U.S. is always the one which invents new products and Japan is the one which takes those products and improves on them to make a better version of it. But here in this case, the WalkCar is a totally new product I have started from scratch. So I also I want to show the world that Japan can also be innovative,” he said. 

Customers can begin reserving WalkCars on Kickstarter come autumn 2015 — it will have a price tag of approximately $800.

Shipping is expected to begin by spring 2016.

Check out the promo video for WalkCar in the clip below:

Via Reuters