► New Seat eMii unveiled in Spain
► Shown at Mobile World Congress
► Electric, connected and shared
Seat has shown off its vision of future mobility at local smartphone convention Mobile World Congress on its doorstep in Barcelona.
The new Seat eMii unveiled at this week’s tech fair incorporates much of the brand’s thinking for this new, fast-evolving streetscape:
- Electric power for zero tailpipe emissions
- Car sharing built in using app connectivity
- Contextual traffic and navigation systems
- Sat-nav able to predict jams in future, monitors eg school closing times
In a nod to the fact that many older cars won’t support these digital systems, Seat is planning to launch in 2017 a dongle that can plug into the car’s OBD diagnostics port and sync with users’ smartphones – enabling many of these features to be used on existing cars.
Great! So when can I buy a Seat eMii?
This is a working prototype that will be used by young urbanites in Barcelona, in a trial overseen by the VW group’s new thinktank called Metropolis:Lab Barcelona.
They’ll harvest real-world experience driving it around town, testing the car-sharing software and a new digital key accessed via users’ phones.
Seat goes interactive
It’s all part of Seat ID – the gateway to the firm’s connectivity services. ETA? It hopes to launch this technology to customers between 2018-19.
‘What we see on the stand [at MWC] is the car that will allow is to test the operation of electrical technology in shared use vehicles,’ said Seat president Luca de Meo. ‘This does not mean that this is going to be our first electric car, but it is the ideal vehicle for carrying out these tests in Barcelona.’
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