EN-V was designed to alleviate concerns surrounding traffic congestion, parking availability, air quality and affordability in tomorrow's cities

The cities of tomorrow face a huge problem – overpopulation. Currently, 50% of the world’s inhabitants live in an urban environment and by 2030 that is expected to rise to 60%. If you’re the kind of person that struggles to get on the train to work or sits in traffic for hours a week, the message is, you ain’t seen nothin’ yet – we’re facing an unprecedented strain on our already overstretched transportation systems. A fundamental rethink is needed in both urban planning and transportation to avoid our cities grinding to a halt.

If you think you’ve heard all that before, you have. As far back as the 1920s people were beginning to foresee overwhelming numbers heading city-wards. The brilliant picture below from 1925 shows one vision of the sort of radical changes that were predicted to be needed – a complete revolution in the way we build cities, separating out different forms of personal transport by speed. It hasn’t happened yet, but innevitably we will need to re-imagine our living spaces.




Alongside shiny new cityscapes, we will also need new forms of transportation – vehicles that will help eliminate congestion altogether. And General Motors could help us get there.

GM believes the key to keeping traffic flowing is something our friends in 1925 would have struggled to imagine – the autonomous vehicle. A vehicle that can transport people efficiently from A to B on its own without ever getting caught in traffic. A vehicle like the EN-V (Electric Networked-Vehicle).

Created by the US carmaker for last year’s Shanghai Expo, the EN-V certainly looks futuristic but you could be forgiven for labelling it as another crazy, hair-brained idea that is likely to end up in a curio museum rather than on our roads. However, after a morning with the vehicle and the guys behind it the wry grins disappeared and we began to realise just how much potential is housed within this little Perspex bubble.

The first thing to say is that the EN-V really works. Today. It’s a concept, sure, but it’s also a runner and the technology packed into it isn’t simply science fiction. The EN-V runs on two wheels using the same self-balancing technology as a Segway (GM and Segway worked collaboratively on the tech) but adds the comfort of seats and a weatherproof roof.

Power is provided by two in-wheel electric motors that allow exceptional manoeuvrability – we were able to turn 360 degrees on the spot in a space barely wider than the EN-V. The EN-V can hit 25mph and the lithium ion phosphate batteries are good for about 25 miles of running.

Without doubt the smartest part of the EN-V is the autonomous mode. Switching this on takes control away from the driver and puts passengers in the hands of super smart guidance systems. GPS plots your course, while forward sensors can navigate you around objects such as buildings, tress, other vehicles and pedestrians.

“Basically you can just send it off to do a job,” Vauxhall’s Director of Communications, Denis Chick told us. “It’ll take you to work, it’ll take the kids to work and come back, and if you’re out with the lads at the pub it’ll bring you home if you’re drunk.”

The idea of sending an EN-V off to do the school run or ferry grandma to and from the house for dinner has immediate appeal, you have to agree. Inside the cabin, a video screen displays vehicle data and can offer video conferencing, meaning you can talk to the passengers while they’re en-route. Everybody could get around easily regardless of their ability to drive.

“This is about freedom for everyone,” says Chick. “We had a lot of positive feedback from many at Goodwood but the kids, who’re growing up with technology, got it more than anyone. The one comment that really stuck out was a young girl in a wheelchair who told us this is what she needs – not in the future; right now. She wouldn’t need a licence to use it, and she could use it just as easily as an able-bodied person.”

But the really ingenious part is the V2V (vehicle-to-vehicle) technology. The EN-Vs can communicate with one another; routes and speeds are constantly being transmitted so that collisions can never occur and potential jams are avoided. V2V basically calculates the speed and direction of each vehicle and pre-plots courses around each other based on that info.



Vehicle to vehicle technology represents a real philosophical shift in not just transportation but how cities work and how we think about getting around.

Future cities would be jam-free and accident free. The traffic light would be a thing of the past – vehicles would glide past each other without ever having to stop.

And in the city of the future the way we use cars could also change. Shared ownership would rise as people realise that it doesn’t matter who’s inside, the car will reach its destination in exactly the same manner. London has ‘Boris Bikes’ – how about ‘Boris Vehicle to Vehicle Urban Mobility Pods’? OK, maybe the name would need some work, but the idea of seeing them lined up outside your office is not so stupid.

Another potential benefit of V2V in our future cities is for the emergency services, who’d no longer need to blare out sirens, flash lights and honk horns to get past the hoards clogging up their route – inner-city emergency service vehicles would receive automatic priority on the road, with other vehicles automatically moving out of the way.

And think about the impact on the car construction. No crashes would be a safety revolution, leading to the removal of safety features such as crumple zones, airbags and side-impact protection. Take that all away and you end up with much smaller vehicles, taking up less room on the roads, but also much lighter vehicles, meaning greater efficiency – hence the two-wheeled stance of the EN-V.

However, a vehicle like the EN-V isn’t very much use in our current cities – riding an EN-V amongst London traffic wouldn’t be much fun at all. “This is very much designed to run in its own environment,” continues Chick. “This is not a car you can take from here and transplant into the middle of London.”

A radical re-interpretation of the city centre is required – controlled environments with special routes free from traditional vehicles, apartment buildings that can deliver you to your front door without having to leave the vehicle and charging opportunities at every stop – or even better, using wireless induction charging from under-road pads while on the move.

Sounds far-fetched, doesn’t it? We’ll never see a whole city built around a type of transport, right? Apparently it may happen sooner than you think. GM is already looking at suitable locations for the application of this technology.

“Shanghai is a classic example of the overpopulation problem right now,” says Chick. “But the Chinese are very much focussed on sorting it. In fact, I understand they are about to start building a big city – almost the size of London – which is going to be traffic free from a conventional traffic perspective, and will have things like the EN-V as the transport solution.”

Whispers suggest it is also being considered as part of small-scale urban development projects within the UK and GM Chris Borroni-Bird, who conceived the EN-V, is currently talking to other countries about the possibilities of new environments for his baby.

That begs another question: what happens if you want to leave your hometown and travel inter-city? According to GM they’ve thought of that, too – special trains would be created to ferry EN-Vs from one city to another, offering total mobility.

A ride in an EN-V is a glimpse of the future, but it’s important not to get carried away. Vauxhall is extremely realistic about when we might see these kinds of vehicles on the market. Aside from building dedicated city spaces, there are legal implications to consider. “This kind of operation means there would have to be lots of changes from a legislative basis,” says Chick. “With taking you home from the pub, who’s driving if you were to be stopped by the police? There would have to be changes to licence legislation.”



The first step to future mobility in reality would be the introduction of V2V in traditional cars within the next ten years. ‘Platooning’ is one example of V2V in operation, whereby vehicles can link up in a train and travel inches away from each other along roadways before splitting off to continue their individual journeys. Platooning helps avoid the concertina effect that causes tailbacks on motoways, and could be brought to help alleviate congestion on Britain’s roads without the need for urban redevelopment.

The next stage would be full automation, and GM is already working on four-wheeled versions of the EN-V that offer more space for passengers and luggage.

So, what do you think? Still unconvinced? Think it’s just not very cool? Well, we’ll leave you with this thought… at Goodwood a number of people who got to see the EN-V in action were asking to have this vehicle right now. Among them was Jamiroquai front-man Jay Kay, who wanted to know how much it would cost him. He was told “Probably around a quarter of a million”. We’re pretty sure that ‘concept-car’ price was meant to put him off, but the 41-year-old simply replied, “OK!”

When vehicles like the EN-V eventually go on sale for real, the target price would be a much more reasonable $10,000; the idea is to make it affordable to all – and that’s the coolest part.

Take a look at a video of our EN-V ride and interview with Tom Brown, GM’s Vehicle Systems Build & Testing Supervisor: