ZF Smart Urban Vehicle: Extremely agile city runabout

W as is already feasible today with existing solutions in the field of city cars, shows automotive supplier ZF with the Smart Urban Vehicle. The small electric car was built completely independently on the basis of a standard small car. The concept vehicle draws its power from a traction battery that can be found in a total of three modules on the front and rear axles.

Extremely agile extreme -Parker

The drive is provided by a torsion beam rear axle that carries a 40 kW electric motor on each wheel and accelerates the Smart Urban Vehicle to up to 150 km /h. To this end, ZF combines a front axle construction with a steering angle of up to 75 degrees. This means that the small car has a turning circle of less than seven meters. The steering movements on the front axle are supported by the torque vectoring system of the rear-axle drive, which distributes the drive force individually to the two rear wheels and only enables the vehicle to move off when the wheel angles are this large.

A parking assistant is also on board, who parks the e-mobile fully automatically lengthways or crossways to the direction of travel - even in tight parking spaces. The system can also be controlled remotely via app.

The driver assistance system uses cloud-based data for maximum range. In the case of repeated journeys, the ideal speed for each section of the route is calculated from this. When the computer takes over, the driver is informed via the display on the steering wheel. Of course, he can override the system at any time.

Whether the driver is on the job - i.e. has his hands on the steering wheel - is recognized by the e-mobile via sensors in the steering wheel and adjusts the assistance systems accordingly and warns the driver if necessary.