The Michelin Challenge Design competition always brings out the most innovative and truly unexpected vehicle designs imaginable, and this one does not disappoint. The Supple from 19-year-old Iranian designer Mohamad Sadegh Samakoush is an electric vehicleunlike anything else the world has ever seen. (Admittedly, it does look uncomfortably similar to the hover-seats in Wall-E, but we’re willing to look past that.)
The Supple consists of a single seat and a motor-driven sphere. The unusual design makes the vehicle easily go in any direction with an almost non-existent turning radius. Inside the sphere sits a tow server and a processor. An integrated GPS map on the touch console provides the driver with a simple, no-effort way to get from place to place: just point at the location and the Supple takes you there.
One of the most fascinating aspects of this design is its flexibility. Because of the seat-on-sphere configuration, the seat can either sit on top or off to the side. This flexibility allows the units to attach to one another: two units together can be a motorcycle-type vehicle for one or two riders and four units together can be a car-like automobile. This is one of thosedesigns that will almost surely not be produced in this form, but it presents an excellent set of ideas for future auto designs.
