Honda Puyo
The Honda Puyo fuel cell concept car is being unveiled at the 2007
Tokyo Motor Show. The term "Puyo" Honda says is a Japanese
onomatopoeia that describes what one feels when touching the car's
soft body and is a description for floating objects. For those who
are not English literature majors and don't know what an onomatopoeia
is, it is a word that imitates a sound, such as quack, vroom or
in the case of Mazda, zoom zoom.
The Honda Puyo is supposed to be a happy little device like an
iPod iDog that is to give people a warm and friendly feeling. The
idea behind the Honda Puyo is to have a personable design that also
yields maximum space to passengers in its box-like interior. Honda
says the Puyo uses "gel body" that promotes safety, presumably
to pedestrians though it is unclear who the walking crash test dummies
were who volunteered for this experiment. Whatever the silicone
body bumps into, it must be a cushier blow that from a car made
of steel and aluminum.
The Honda Puyo body is luminescent, which helps drivers achieve
the correct operating position. The luminescent body also informs
the drivers about the operating condition of the vehicle. If the
Honda Puyo is happy and fully operational, for instance, it may
glow green to convey this message to passengers and driver, which
is poetically apropos for such a green vehicle. This may also help
other drivers to avoid crashing into the Honda Puyo at night.
The interior of the Honda Puyo has a silky feel and a joystick
(that replaces the steering wheel). The sensual nature of this hydrogen
fuel cell car also comes with a sense of transparency from its panoramic
windows and intuitive operation. One of the coolest features of
the Honda Puyo, however, is that the cabin rotates 360-degrees so
the car doesn't have to go in reverse.
The soft cloth dashboard also rises up to greet the passengers
when the car is started. The Honda Puyo also has an instrument panel
monitor and luminous fluid meters. Even though the Honda Puyo is
a fun little oddity that will most likely never see the light of
a showroom floor, it also shows the company's outside-the-box thinking
for this boxy little car. Booya to Puyo for its creative quirkiness!
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