The eVita isn’t immediately destined for production but rather serves as a call to action for the industry to better consider the needs of disabled users in the transition to EVs.
Motability CEO Andrew Miller said: “Collaboration is key to making the EV transition a success for wheelchair users. We need our partners, manufacturers and policy makers to believe in better and to work alongside us to take action. [The] eVita shows what can be done.”
Callum also sees this project as a testbed for something that could be adapted for other uses, thanks to that unique – and “still being worked on” – battery pack design allowing extra space in the back.
Ian Callum said: “The nice thing about it is, now we’ve designed this, if we wanted it to be a vehicle that might not just be a wheelchair user’s vehicle, we could create something that maybe even appealed to uses such as pushbikes or motorbikes or camping or something like that.
“We certainly don’t want to give people the notion that it only has one practical use. We really believe if we design it properly, we will attract people who use it for other things. Because we’ve resolved the issue of the battery being in the wrong place, therefore we’ve opened up the back for a lot more activity.”
If anything did make production, it would require a bespoke platform that would allow battery packs to be fitted “not just to one specific area”, Ian Callum said, so that range wouldn’t be impacted.
