An autonomous smart scooter to drive you home

The concept aims to provide an alternative form of "last-mile" travel to home or other destinations

Spotted: UK design studio Layer is designing a smart autonomous scooter with Chinese electric vehicle company NIO. The scooter, called Pal, will use machine learning to remember a passenger’s regular routes. It will learn the route over time, eventually becoming autonomous, the company said. It will respond to voice commands via Bluetooth and the NIO app, Layer said.

“Pal is a near-future concept for a nimble ‘last-mile’ electric vehicle that addresses the growing congestion and population density of our cities and offers a possible solution to these challenges,” Layer founder Benjamin Hubert told Dezeen.

The scooter is small and compact, and fits in the boot of a small car. It is also collapsible to fit in smaller places. It runs on a battery, which can be charged in a NIO vehicle or at home. A prototype of Pal was presented at the annual Milan Design Week in April.