THE NEW LEGO VEHICLE – TABBY
OSVehicle, an Italian company just launched a new line of vehicles that can be assembled from a kit within 1 hour. Tabby is in development since 2006 and it is an open-source vehicle that almost anyone can put together himself. Tabby is a four-wheel urban mini-car that is configured to customer specifications and is designed to travel at a speed of up to 50 mph.
Features
The most innovative feature is that the engine is open source, which means that the plans are readily available to download free of charge and can evolve over time. Tabby has a basic chassis designed to fit a heat, electric or hybrid engine. Anyone can make their own Tabby chassis or buy the parts in kit form using the plans available on the Internet.
Pre-Orders
OSVehicle is already taking pre-orders on its website for the electric Tabby kit, and these will be delivered from May 2014 onwards. They don’t provide any of the body work as buyers are invited to come up with their own designs. Each set of parts is sold separately so one can buy an assembly kit for a two-seat or four-seat chassis for $700, a lead acid battery for $1000 or an electric power unit for $2000.
Benefits of the Tabby
Tabbies are aimed not only at do-it-yourself fans but also at manufacturers of small vehicles, especially in emerging markets. The fact that Tabbies can be assembled quickly without any complex production lines means that any low cost manufacturing plant can assemble them and sell them at a vet reasonable price.
Price
OSVehicle estimates that companies could produce and market a complete Tabby for around $8,000. For more information regarding Tabby visit http://www.osvehicle.com.
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