TOKYO (REUTERS) – The ancient Japanese art of origami – or paper folding – applied to a car which can squeeze itself into the tightest of parking spaces. The Earth-1 electric car was inspired by the Transformers – toy robots that turn into cars or beasts and back again. A super-power particularly useful when the quest is a parking space in one of the most congested cities in the world, Tokyo. 

“Extremely tiny vehicles can park in narrow spaces. We initiated our project to fold a car and transform it in to something smaller to help with the concept of reducing parking spaces,” said president and chief executive officer at Four Link Systems, Inc., Hiroomi Kinoshita.

The car was designed by Kunio Okawara, famous in Japan as the artist behind the transforming robots of long-running TV series Gundam, aiming for a new generation of younger drivers.

“Most of all,  we also wanted to figure out how to attract people who seldom purchase cars and encourage them to start driving a car. So we developed a vehicle which makes  drivers feel as if they’re steering something that’s not a car…a robot-inspired shape that makes people feel like they are operating a robot while driving,” said Kinoshita.

Four Link Systems hopes to sell 300 folding cars a year. Currently, it has orders for 30 at a price of US$70,000 (S$93,550).

The company says it is hoping for authorization to drive Earth-1s on the public highways in Japan in March 2018.

Originally published on www.straitstimes.com