The tech and startup blog Wunderding and Uniti CEO Lewis Horne got talking at CeBit 2016 about how Uniti wants to reinvent the car as we know it today, what makes Uniti unique and how Uniti plays a part in shaping a sustainable auto industry.
The re-invention of the car started with questioning the current logic of building cars. Lewis points out that the cars we use today have undergone a linear design progression over time from the horse-drawn carriage, to where we are today, still maintaining remnants of old mechanical design limitations such as pedals and a mechanical steering wheel. The result of Uniti’s development process is a modular vehicle design, with one piece of hardware at the core of the platform that encompasses the entire user experience. This enables simpler engineering and an improved user experience through a unique drive-by-wire system. Lewis explains that we can improve our environmental impact by ‘overcoming complexity by design’, and all business practices can be streamlined towards efficiency and a logic that has sustainability at its core: “We don’t think it is logical to have a ton and a half machinery driving around an average of 1.2 people and being parked most of the time.”
Consequently, Uniti is designed for the needs of modern users, who desire intuitive technology and are appreciative of a great user experience, less plastic and a purposeful brand. According to Lewis, the vital market for electric vehicles is not held back because of immature technology and can be grown through the power of the crowd. For further prototyping, Uniti is benefitting from hardware integration with big companies who have unique engineering expertise in specific fields like biodegradable plastic components. The goal is to have a production vehicle ready by 2018, but pre-orders are already coming in via the website. Even though this support is a clear indicator that people believe in Uniti’s concept, Lewis is confronted with skepticism as well. He responds by explaining that Uniti does not claim to compete with highly complex and expensive cars that literally rank in a different category. Uniti is created within the EU L7 car category for short city transportation without the purpose to drive on the highway. Thus, it benefits from little regulatory boundaries that leave room for much more extreme innovation, and innovative business models which are connected to many interesting revenue streams in the future; for example car-on-demand services through autonomous driving.
For more first-hand information, find the full interview with Lewis on Wunderding’s blog.
One of our engineers Albin Wilson was the first person to take the KeplerPod on a VR test drive at CeBit in March. See in this video what his reaction was and how he explains the ‘new way of driving’ that Uniti stands for.
