Ford thinks beyond cars for future mobility

At first glance, you may mistake the small circular machine at Ford’s Mobile World Congress booth for a Rumba. But you would be wrong. It's called the Carr-E and is one of Ford’s prototypes for a future personal mobility vehicle.

The Carr-E is the brainchild of Kilan Vas, a Ford systems engineer based in Cologne, Germany. Vas built Carr-E as part of Ford's "Last Mile Mobility Challenge." The competition asked employees to come up with an electric prototype that would make commuting easier in places where a car is not permitted or impractical. Carr-E was one of the finalists.

About the same size as a tire, Carr-E is meant to fit in the trunk of a car. It can carry a load of up to 120 kilograms at a max speed of 11km/hr and has a range of 22 kilometers, which should be plenty of juice to get you through the last leg of your journey. It's also possible to put Carr-E into "drone mode" and have it follow you around, something that might be useful when you have heavy luggage.

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