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Light Car -- Open Source: Bringing OLED TVs to the streets

We just walked past the EDAG stand at the Geneva Motor Show and nearly tripped over our tongues. Why? A frankly stunning vision of the eco-friendly driving future

Rory Reid
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Your Crave reps at the Geneva International Motor Show just walked past the EDAG stand and nearly tripped over our tongues. Why? Because of the Light Car -- Open Source, a frankly stunning (if annoyingly punctuated) vision of the eco-friendly driving future.

Yes, it's another wacky electric concept car, but get this: it has an OLED display in the tailgate, which can be used as a screen for communicating with other cars. It's madness, we tell you!

You can't send your fellow road-goers carefully worded messages of admiration for their wonderful driving skills, but you can relay a variety of safety-related graphics that may help save lives. Examples we saw included warnings for driving too close, and icons explaining that there was a pedestrian crossing ahead, but the possibilities are virtually endless.

The Light Car's designers, EDAG, say it will be powered by an all-electric drive system with a range of up to 93 miles, so it's ideal as a city runaround. The battery is of the lithium-ion variety and propulsion will be handled by four individual electric motors positioned directly inside each wheel -- rather like the similarly named Lightning GTS.

EDAG tells us the Light Car will be based on a rolling chassis -- a universal platform on which other types of vehicle can be built, simply by connecting alternative body shells. This, we're told, enables vehicle derivatives -- convertibles, pick-up trucks, sports cars and more -- to be developed on the same platform, but at lower cost and with improved speed. There's also a slim chance users might be able to swap between body shells after purchase.

Speaking of bodies, the Light Car is almost entirely constructed from industrially standardised basalt fibre, a material that has similar properties to fibreglass or carbon fibre. It's 100 per cent recyclable, is lighter, cheaper, and -- according to EDAG -- is strong enough to withstand crashes due to its high compression strength. We can't vouch for that, but we've been down with all this recycling stuff from day one. Bring it on. Click through for more pics.

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You've seen the back end of it doling out messages and whatnot, now bask in the glory that is its face.
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The Light Car -- Open Source is built on a standardised platform that can be re-used to create different types of vehicle.
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OLED lights litter the bodywork. Here, the battery indicator lights below the doors warn small dogs that it's fully charged. Urinate here at your peril.
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The headlamps are framed by OLED lights, the colour of which can be changed by the driver to make the car a little more unusual.
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The rear-mounted LEDs can display all manner of messages -- possibly even your vehicle's registration number. Or somebody else's.

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