Green wheels: iSAVE-SC1 world's safest car wears airbags on its exterior

It’s astonishing how a country that has brought us automotive gems like the Mazda and the Lexus can also be the birthplace of astonishingly moronic vehicle like this three-legged electric prototype that apparently comes with shock-absorbing airbags on the outside. You read it right, this car has airbags wrapped all over its body. The electric tri-car is called the iSAVE-SC1 and it was developed based on the research conducted by Hiroshima University by Hiroshima-based company called Humanix. We’re not sure why the company thought it would be a good idea to protect the car’s body with airbags rather than the people who would be inside, but the gimmick car is generating some enthusiasm nonetheless.

The iSAVE-SC1

The green machine

The Humanix iSAVE-SC1 is a crazy little prototype that has “Japanese whim” written all over it. Its makers claim that the vehicle comes covered with tent cloth with inflated airbags at the front and rear that cushion the impact when air is released from the bags in the event of a collision. The three-wheel prototype runs on an electric motor and goes to up to 50 km/h on the road.

Green factor

Based on this idea that living creatures are naturally soft and their fur and the fat under their skin prevents them from injuring their vital organs and bones in case of accidents, the three-wheeled Humanix iSAVE-SC1 comes with an electric powertrain that can be easily recharged at home. With enough space for 3 adults (by Japanese standards), the iSAVE-SC1 comes with no doors and airbags though it claims to soften the impact of the collision with the air bags fitted in the car’s body.

The powertrain

The company has not specified what kind of an electric motor is used on the vehicle, neither does it reveal the details about the capacity of the battery back, though it does say that the maximum speed of the iSAVE-SC1 is 50 km/h.

The highs

With a price around $ 10.400, the iSAVE-SC1 isn’t exactly cheap though the company claims that it is the safest electric vehicle in the world. The iSAVE-SC1 can easily be charged using conventional 100V power plugs which means you don’t need to find 220V socket at public charging stations and the company claims that the vehicle’s maintenance costs would also be very low and it would cost around a fifth to a tenth of what running a gasoline-run vehicles costs.

The lows

Picture Gallery

The iSAVE-SC1

Humanix iSAVE-SC1 Car Wears Its Airbags on the outside

Created in conjunction with Hiroshima University by a Japanese company called Humanix, the world’s safest car looks more like a glorified golf cart than a real road-legal city vehicle. With a top speed of 50km/h, we’re not sure if the concept would ever be in a position where its airbags would really be tested. What’s even more puzzling about this concept is that the novelty value of the vehicle has been glorified to the extent that it missed some pretty basic points about the functioning and usage of airbags.

First of all, in regular car, airbags are deployed on impact which means that this car would have to pre-empt impact pretty intuitively for its airbags to work. Secondly, airbags are not designed to prevent the car from being damaged in case of an accident and their main job is to protect the people inside from getting injured by cutting them off physically from the hard surfaces in front them i.e., the dashboard, the steering wheel and the windshield.

Since the job of the airbags on the outside of the car is to soften the blow on the body of the shell of the car, we’re sorry to tell the manufacturers that the sheer momentum of the collision would be enough to hurl the driver and the passenger into the steering wheel/dashboard/doors/windshield as well as leaving them susceptible to whiplash which is one of the major advantages of having airbags inside.

Cost and availability

As in the sketch, the vehicle should presumably come with a complete wrap-around air-bagged body when its production version is launched. mass production of the car is currently scheduled to start in spring next year and can be delayed by a few months as well. Usable for general monitoring purposes, the vehicles would be offered at a cost of around 790,000 yen each that’s comes out to roughly $10,000 in U.S. currency. The iSAVE-SC1 which seats three, would initially be launched in a limited production run of about 100 units with a US-spec model reaching showrooms as early as next year though the vehicle would hit the Japanese market in early December of 2012.