March 25th, 2010 
Aaron Turpen 
Hoover Mark 1 "Pride" (not one of the 7 deadlies in China)
General Motors, along with partners Shanghai Automotive Industry Corp (SAIC) and Segway, has released a concept car (the word is used loosely) platform called the Electric Networked-Vehicle (EN-V). The platform has three vehicle concepts, all based on the same drivetrain and chassis. No word yet on how much bialout money was used to pay for these designs.
The concepts are clearly meant for the Asian market and maybe those weird Samurai-wannabe kids that go to conventions wearing kimonos and top knots. The three vehicles are the Jiao (the noise you make when someone steps on your toe), the Miao (“roast cat with string beans” – a delicacy in China), and the Xiao (the sound Chinese government bureaucrats made when they found out Google stopped censoring search results in China).
The concepts will be showcased at the upcoming World Expo 2010 in Shanghai, starting in May, and rumor says the booth will be full of Prideful Laughter and Magic. If you don’t get that (completely hilarious) joke, it’s because you didn’t read the actual information on these things at Green Car Congress. That is also where, incidentally, I got these photos because I erased the original GM press release after covering this for FutureCars. Thanks GCC!
The Dyson H Potter
Meanwhile, the vacuum reference is well-put and comes from Stuart Schwartz(enegger) at Wired Autopia. His article is aptly filed in the “WTF Dept.”
Anyway, these little cars aren’t just personal mobility devices with a windscreen. Nope, they’re automated, folks. Yep, the good people at Government Motors thought it would be awesome to not only put these cars into some kind of vehicle-to-vehicle cloud network thingee, but also to throw in some other buzz phrases from IT marketing like “GPS” and “cloud traffic data in real-time.” Probably those guys at Segway coming up with that clap-trap.
These cars are capable of a mind-blowing 25mph for a range of a hugely useful 25 miles per charge. Oh, and they can “integrate and interact” with the “smart grid.” Only while plugged in, of course. What they don’t mention is that if you’re totally sloshed and you get into your new EN-V and drunkenly ask it to take you home, it will instead deliver you to the nearest police station for disposal.
Seriously, while reading the press release info, something in the back of my brain kept burping out “Soylent Green” and “WALLLL-Eeee” for whatever reason.
The Oreck Don't Make Me Xiao, pride of the fleet
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