Dacia has given a glimpse into the potential future of the electric city car after revealing the all-new Hipster Concept, a model it says ‘rethinks what customers want from an EV’.
The Hipster has been designed to give an indication of what the car of tomorrow may look like, with a focus on making mobility as accessible as possible to the masses.
In short, the brief was to a create a car that Romain Gauvin, Head of Advanced Design and Exterior Design at Dacia, has since described as ‘the most Dacia-esque project that I have ever worked on’.
Rather than looking at what people may like from a car, the focus was instead on what was needed – ensuring that the end design was both practical enough to seat four passengers and also economical.
Taking on the visual appearance of the hugely popular Kei cars from Japan, the Hipster Concept measures in at just three metres long and 1.55 metres wide and weighs less than the Spring to maximise efficiency – forgoing regular features like electric windows for sliding options to remove the weight of motors as an example.
Although range is limited in terms of many modern EVs, the Hipster has been created to meet the need of the majority of motorists who 'drive under 24 miles a day', which would mean the car only needed to be charged a handful of times a week.
In design terms, alongside the boxy appearance with a wheel on each corner, the Hipster has a two-piece tailgate for ease of access to the rear, where the boot can be expanded by folding the rear seats to give 500 litres of space.
Seats have been designed to be lightweight whilst the dashboard is minimalist with drivers using their mobile phone as part of the display to utilise things like sat nav and music without the need to an integrated system.
It remains to see whether Dacia puts the Hipster, or a variant of it, into production in the future.
- Dacia
- Electric