Volkswagen Designs All-Electric Office Chair That Drives At 12 MPH
Image courtesy of Volkswagen Norway
If the only scenery you’ve enjoyed of late is the one in your desktop wallpaper, Volkswagen may have the perfect wheels for you. The automaker’s Commercial Vehicles wing in Norway has designed an “all-electric” office chair that simulates core features of its cars and rolls them into one seating. While it’s not the same thing, the piece of furniture promises to whizz you past the office landscape, at least.
You can tell this is a Volkswagen chair by its recognizable VW-esque LED headlights. Although development encapsulated months of work and testing, the office chair isn’t road-approved, of course, but the glow will be helpful when you’re working after hours or when there’s an impromptu office party.
Most importantly, the chair “drives.” With the help of its tire-like wheels, it zips at a top speed of 20 km/h (12.4 m/h) and a range of 12 km (7.5 miles), enabling its rider to take quick—and multiple—coffee breaks as well as be first in line at lunch.
Roadblocks aren’t a thing in the corporate environment—oh, but coworkers who walk freakishly quiet behind you, while you’re engrossed in a game of Solitaire, are. You can keep them in your peripherals with ‘Office Assistance’ controls such as a rear-view camera and 360° sensors, and if they’re in your way, just honk or signal. At some point, we forgot we were talking about a chair.
Helping sitters endure the entire journey of a workday is an entertainment system within the chair, which comes pre-loaded with “road trip songs” to accompany them from corridor to corridor. For a cozier experience, they can turn on the seat warmer.
You don’t have to keep your hands on the steering wheel, but you can keep them free thanks to the built-in trunk, which has enough space to hold your laptop and documents. If you need more room, a trailer hitch lets you drag additional paperwork around seamlessly.
The tongue-in-cheek chair, dreamed up by creative strategy firm Try, is a metaphor for how Volkswagen Commercial Vehicles is “Norway’s most popular workplace on four wheels,” all while giving drivers a chance “to laugh at people who are stuck working an office job,” according to the press release.
It’s too bad this chair isn’t available for purchase, as it’s one-of-a-kind and only for display—“simply because we will always prioritize people who actually need a car for work,” explains Volkswagen Commercial Vehicles Norway. Nevertheless, customers will still be able to test-drive the model at local dealerships in the coming months.
[via Volkswagen Norway, images courtesy]
