GM impresses CES 2011 with Electric Networked Vehicles

After a six-month run as main attractions at the 2010 World Expo in Shanghai, General Motors’ EN-V concepts made their North American public debut at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas.

Using a driving course set up outside of the Las Vegas Convention Center, GM demonstrated the autonomous driving capabilities of EN-V, including a feature that would allow the vehicles to park themselves and automatically return to the user when summoned from a smartphone application.

According to the media.gm.com news release, EN-V is GM’s vision of the future of urban personal mobility. Three different EN-V designs represent distinct characteristics that emphasize the enjoyable nature of future transportation: Jiao (Pride), Miao (Magic) and Xiao (Laugh).

For the record, six EN-Vs can fit into a standard American parking space while one self-balancing, two-wheeled EN-V provides interior space for two passengers. Using its sophisticated sensing technology, EN-V can detect obstacles in its path, including pedestrians or other vehicles, and automatically come to a stop.

The closest competition to the concept vehicles is the Smart For Two, for which the EN-V is half the length.

Following CES, the EN-V vehicles will be on static display at North American International Auto Show in Detroit; and TorqueNews reporters will be there to cover and tweet directly from the floor during press week.

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