Clever vehicle drives like a car, rides like a bike

A REVOLUTIONARY tilting three-wheeled car, which is only one metre-wide, is being developed by a team of European scientists.

The vehicle, designed to be driven in cities, aims to combine the safety of a car with the manoeuvrability of a motorbike.

With a top speed of 50mph, it will cost about €10,000 to buy if it goes into production and be more fuel-efficient and less polluting than other vehicles.

The Clever (Compact Low Emission Vehicle for Urban Transport) vehicle is a €2.75m collaborative project involving nine European countries.

The project, funded by the European Union, began in December 2002 and a prototype of the car is expected to be built by December 2005.

At just over one metre wide, the vehicle is fully enclosed in a metal framework. Its roof is as high as conventional cars, and it carries one passenger, who sits behind the driver.

Scientists at Bath University are designing a hydraulic tilting chassis to make the car stable at high speeds.

Jos Darling, senior lecturer in mechanical engineering at the university, said the car marked a “tremendous leap forward” in the development of vehicles.

He said: “The increase in traffic in our towns and cities means that we have to find a way to make our vehicles smaller. The advent of micro cars is a sign of this, but with its manoeuvrability and small width, the Clever vehicle is the ultimate in the search for a small vehicle to get around cities.”

Running on compressed natural gas, its fuel consumption is predicted to be equivalent to 188 miles per gallon (or 1.51 litres per 100 km), a fifth of most cars.