Much like the Queen mum’s corpse, the humble motorbike is well over a hundred years old and in need of a good sprucing up.
Stepping up to the plate is Jake Loniak, a design student at California’s Art Center in Pasadena. Jake’s Deus Ex Machina exoskeleton is pretty much how eight-year-old us imagined we’d all be getting to work to in 2020 – and that’s just what might happen.
The vertically parking, one-passenger “wearable” motorbike features seven artificial vertebrae behind the helmet, and is controlled via 36 pneumatic muscles and two linear actuators hooked up to your body.
Nanophosphate batteries similar to the ones in hybrid cars make this hippie-pleasing and cheap to run. However, it can still hit man-pleasing speeds of 120km/h.
Sadly, the Deus Ex Machina is still only a concept, so it could be a while before we get to take it to Macca’s drive-thru.
The Deus Ex Machina parks in its vertical form, but moves down to put the rider into a regular sports bike position once it picks up speed.
And it does that damn quickly, too – designer Loniak estimates it will go from 0-100km/h in a ridiculous three seconds, which will be awesome if you’re trying to overtake, but not so awesome if there happens to be a bird flying into your path.
The batteries will take 15 minutes to charge, and you’ll get an hour’s use before you need to find another socket.
Would you like one of these awesome machines? And how would you best pimp your new ride? Comment below!