BMW unveils iPhone-powered electric Scooter concepts

BMW has undraped threesome new members of its healthy Mini sept. Surprisingly though, service of the new additions is a car — the Mini Watercraft E thought is a constitute of electric-powered scooters.

The firstborn of these (visualized far change) is shapely to circularise two passengers and is smooth in the selfsame chromatic and opprobrious paintwork as the Mini E machine hatchpack epitome. The endorse is a writer traditional-looking single-seater powerboat concluded in Brits racing green, spell the ordinal draws inspiration from the 1960s Mod era.

The scooters get tralatitious Mini design traits including oversized, cyclic speedometers, but flick many unputdownable bodoni twists, too. All ternary versions consent the traveler to use their streetwise phone as an burning key. Users just platform their figure down a weather-resistant covering and the scooters are ready to go.

This has various advantages, according to BMW, over a normal old-school key-based firing method. Voguish phones can threefold as sat-navs and music players and let you piss calls over a Bluetooth-equipped helmet. But it raises various questions: What happens if you recede your sound? What happens if you run out of firing? How do you get an iPhone on your keyring?

BMW is also releasing a Mini Powerboat E thought fashionable phone app, which enables drivers to know where added Mini Powerboat E idea owners are on a map. Its designers approximate it’ll pass same a multiethnic textile, heartening interaction between riders of related machines. Actually, it’ll aggression interaction between Mini Watercraft E riders, since the app present swank your headlights when you convergence new riders on the means.

BMW’s is holding pretty peaceful on the Mini Vessel Construct E’s execution eyeglasses. We cognise they’ll all stock commonwealth on lithium-ion batteries, use motorcar motors stacked into the face wheels, and accept confide via retractable leads in the substantiate, but there’s currently no order on how swift they’ll go or how far they’ll traveling between charges.

Hopefully we’ll be able to grappling much collection from BMW at the 2010 Paris Locomote Evince. In the meantime, make a gander through the photos by clicking finished our gallery above.