There is an opportunity in countries with emerging economics, including Cambodia, El Salvador, and Ethiopia, for an innovative vehicle to replace the often dangerous and inefficient modes of transportation that are currently available. Economic and ecological conditions demand an extremely affordable, durable, and easily repairable solution.

The design is intended to be flexible; adapting to local resources, terrain, and conditions. We are exploring cost-effecitve methods to produce a vehicle to make it available to all members of a community. Several power plant options are being studied with respect to cost, energy efficiency, environmental impact, and particular market's available fuels and technical resources.

Outgoing research has included travel to Cambodia, Bali, Italy, China, England, as well as in the United States. Investigations have encompassed alternate methods of constructino used in low-volume production, as emploed at Caterham, Lotus, and Morgan among other automobile manufacturers, and in the kit car industries in the United States. In addition to examining manufacturing approaches, our research has also allowed for direct observations of the conditions and requirements for vehicles as they are currently used in these cultures.

These observations suggest a design opportunity for a new class of low-cost, easily maintained vehicles that could be modifief and repaired using local labor and technologies, and used to replace or complement motorcycles.

eMotive's work to date includes research; design explorations into seating configurations; design studies for exterior form; the creation of full-sized mock-up to develop a sense of proportion and scale with respect to the users and the context; and the fabrication of a research prototype to investigate power plants, handling, suspension, and drive train issues.

The eMotive team is comprised of Chis Bull (Brown University, Engineering), Michael Lye and Khipra Nichols (RISD, Industrial Design), and Brown and RISD students.