New car news

21 June 2008 - 12:00

Positive Mindset

With the exception of gigantic piles of Toblerone, the Swiss don't tend to bring much of note to their home motor show in Geneva.

But this year looks set to be a little different. We've already seen the tuxedo-ruining Rinspeed sQuba concept, and now Swiss firm Mindset has revealed this, the E-Motion concept set to be unveiled in Geneva next month.

Penned by former VW design chief Murat Guenak - the man responsible for the Mark V Golf and Peugeot 206 CC - the E-Motion is only a scale model at the moment. However, Mindset says it plans to market a production version as early as next year.

Under that long hood lurks, predictably, a hybrid drivetrain, with a small electric motor running off lithium-ion batteries. Mindset says this electric power alone will allow the E-Motion to cover some 70 miles on a single charge, but when the batteries run low a tiny petrol engine will kick in to replenish them.

This should give a combined economy figure of over 100mpg - a figure helped by the E-Motion's kerbweight of just 800kg. Such impressive lightness is thanks to the vehicle's aluminium spaceframe with plastic cladding, though we've got a feeling the E-Motion's gullwing doors are merely for show rather than function.

Mindset hopes to sell some 10,000 E-Motions annually at a cost of about £40,000. Ambitious? No question. Impossible? Almost certainly. Curiously endearing in a Jetsons-meets-breadvan way? We reckon so.