Creating the ultimate city car is a tricky task. New Swiss start-up KOMMA is just about to test the waters with their Urban Mobility Vehicle proposal, an as-yet-unnamed machine they hope to have up and running by 2022. Co-founded by tech entrepreneur Petter Neby and the Flemish auto designer Lowie Vermeersch, KOMMA will cross-pollinate two very distinct spheres of influence to shape a new approach to city travel.
on distilling everyday gadgets and devices down to the bare aesthetic essentials. Vermeersch comes from another realm. As Design Director at Pininfarina from 2007 to 2010, he oversaw some of the most elegant auto designs of the decade, before leaving to set up Granstudio in Turin. Granstudio placed more emphasis on technology and mobility, rather than all-out performance and dramatic looks. Now the two men have teamed up to make a new bid for sustainable urban travel.
It’s all about scale. The first great wave of private mobility in the decades after the Second World War saw companies make their name with smallfor the masses. But over time, the profitability of the compact car has nose-dived, and comfort, performance and big scale have become the only games in town. KOMMA wants to change all that.
‘We started out talking about technology, says Vermeersch, ‘this has been tried before, but it’s not been successful.’ All this, of course, is impossible without a pure electric drivetrain. ‘It allows us to really change the packaging and handling,’ says Vermeersch, ‘the moment the vehicle becomes wider than it has to behave more like a car.’ Instead, the prototype promises a mix of convenience, agility, enjoyment and long-range that simply isn’t possible in a conventionally sized EV.
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