Rinspeed Snap autonomous EV to grace CES 2018

At CES 2018 Rinspeed will be showing off a new autonomous EV called the Snap that it believes will help solve the transportation problems in urban areas in the future. The vehicle gets its name from the fact that the durable passenger safety cell pod section of the vehicle is removable from the high-wear chassis of the vehicle.

This means that as the chassis section wears out, the passenger pod can be snapped off the chassis. Rinspeed says that when the safety pod is pulled off the chassis it can be used for other needs. Needs such as being turned into a shopping pod or a spacious camping pod among other uses.

Along with the components that push the autonomous vehicle along, all the "fast-aging" IT components will be contained in the chassis section. That chassis section can be recycled when it's no longer useful. The chassis section uses a pair of steering axles with an integrated electric powertrain from ZF. There is no word on range.

The chassis section produces no emissions and with dual steering axles can "turn on a dime" according to Rinspeed. Other features include an optional autonomous robot to act as a personal assistant to passengers. Maps used for autonomous navigation are from TomTom.

The vehicle is unlocked by a token and the displays inside are customized automatically by the token. There is also iris scanning the to recognize passengers. Another biometric system can record health data on the passengers.

SOURCE: Rinspeed