If you’re a person who believes that legs should only be used for shaking purposes, you might have leapt for joy (while lying in bed) when you heard about QIQ Global’s new initiative.
For those who don’t know, the Singapore firm plans to launch tiny electric microcars for hire, called the QIQ Pod, next year.
This will allow lazy tired commuters to drive for the short trip home from the MRT station instead of taking a bus or walking.
Will Start in Punggol
You might be lucky enough to live 2 minutes away from the nearest MRT station, but many residents in Punggol don’t have this luxury, said QIQ Global chief executive and co-founder Justin Sim.
“For a lot of the residents in Punggol, they are still required to take a feeder service or to walk a long distance to reach the LRT (Light Rail Transit) station”, he said.
Sim added that there was still “a lot of inefficiencies” in the town’s public transport network.
If everything goes according to plan, Sim plans to introduce between 300 and 600 microcars in Punggol next year.
The small cars are just 2.4m long and 1m wide and can seat two people. They look like the kind of cars smurfs would drive.
But, it turns out, something else caught netizens’ attention.
The resemblance to Paper Cars Used as Offerings
While some residents were celebrating, others noticed the cars resembled the paper model cars burnt as offerings to the deceased by some Chinese people.
According to The Beijinger, some Chinese families burn paper versions of objects such as cars, watches, iPhones, and houses for their deceased relatives so they can better enjoy the afterlife.
This tradition is reportedly Taoist in origin and is a longstanding cultural practice in China, as well as other countries.
Here’s what a paper car looks like.
This is why netizens also shared memes like these:
Same same but different pic.twitter.com/rx73UyuZjG
— All Singapore Stuff (@allsgstuff) August 12, 2020
Company’s Response
In response to an SGAG Facebook post, QIQ Global amusingly replied that they’re consoling their vehicle designer after the crushing ‘criticism’.
Imagine investing a truckload of money and time into designing the perfect microcar, only for netizens to compare it to a paper one.
QIQ Global CEO Dalston Pung, however, said that there were “no hard feelings at all” towards netizens about the ‘memeification’ of their design.
“We design our vehicles to be robust and capable enough to take on the expected high utilisation of the vehicle in a car-sharing programme environment,” he said.
“While we might learn to improve the design of the vehicle to make it ‘sexier’ and more ‘high-tech’, we believe in keeping the manufacturing of the vehicle easy and cheap enough to ensure that the cost of using the vehicle is always cheaper for the end-users.”
Car Can Park by Itself and Will Cost $2 For 30 Minutes
While it may not be as sexy as a Tesla, the microcar has the ability to park itself, once the user exits the vehicle.
According to CNA, QIQ Global plans to design their microcars to be able to autonomously park themselves at the nearest charging station.
“It’s so easy to drive you don’t even need to learn how to park the car”, Sim said.
“When you end the ride, you leave it by the curbside and it will park by itself.”
This means that unlike BlueSG’s shared electric vehicles, you may not have to drive it to a specific location to charge; you could just leave wherever you please, to further cut down your walking time and chances of living longer.
It will also likely cost S$2 for a 30-minute ride, and between S$30 and S$50 monthly to use the microcar multiple times every day.
So, if these microcars are approved for use, netizens will face a new dilemma every day on their way home; should I waste more money to avoid walking, or save money and walk more to improve my health?
I think we both know which option Singaporeans will choose.
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