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This Off-Road Electric Wheelchair Can Go Places Conventional Wheelchairs Can't

The ECar tackles rural areas

By Rain Noe - April 24, 2020

in Object Culture

Our farm is extremely wheelchair-unfriendly. The property features a gravel driveway, plenty of mud, uneven surfaces, sloping terrain; it would be impossible to navigate in a conventional wheelchair.

Russian company Velobig recognizes that not all wheelchair users live in paved urban environments. Thus they developed the ECar, an electric-powered off-road wheelchair with impressive capability:

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As there's no rollover protection, I'd be nervous about using this on some of the more challenging parts of the local terrain; but I think with some common sense and careful route selection, I could use this to get most places I needed to go around here.

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Marliza Visser

4 years ago

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This is an amazing idea and concept.

A quick google search indicates that 65 million people are dependant in one form or another on wheelchairs for mobility (20 million people do not have access to wheelchairs). So there is a marker, but the design of wheelchairs has mostly remained the same.

So this feels like a wheel in the right direction, although this was designed and made for people that are a bit more indepedant. There is so much more that can be done for people with mobility issues.

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Jeremy Labelle

5 years ago

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This reminded me of the SWINCAR e-Spider that you posted a while back. They've refined the design an now include mobility model, featuring an interesting way to enter the vehicle from a wheelchair, along with roll-over protection. https://www.swincar.net/details-swincar+e-spider+mobility+model-22.html

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Derek Chan

5 years ago

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I would think building on an electric ATV base might be better. That 4x4 wheelchair isnt going indoors anyway.

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