A year ago, the Atom project team made it possible to ride on the functional prototype of its gadget electric car. Today, the prototype is already different – pre -production. This means that this is how the car that will be offered to the consumer will look from the outside. And his sled qualities are largely consistent with those that will have “commodity” machines. Therefore, we took part in the next mini-test with interest. True, the trip was so short that it was not possible to collect any whole impressions. The main conclusion is that the car exists and rides, and the development goes on its own.
There were already many different publications about the atom on the motor, so I will not repeat myself and will share only with fresh impressions and information. First of all, it was curious to try swing doors in the case. The complex mechanism of opening-opening with the help of electric drives works quite clearly-no worse than in the same avatar. Only the scheme with the obligatory opening of the front door, if necessary, turn to the rear, raises questions – it is easy to imagine scenarios in which this will cause inconvenience to the driver.
Atom
Minimalism reigns in the interior: at least surfaces, textures, shades, controls and even body racks. The number of monitors so fashionable today is also reduced to one unit – and it is located on the steering wheel. The solution, in my opinion, is as ambiguous as the original (this is true for the design of the doors). It turns out that all the screens (still projection) are addressed to the driver only, while passengers remain only the voice control. Modernly, but also does not leave an alternative.
Dmitry Laskov 
Dmitry Laskov 
Dmitry Laskov
The buttons in the cabin is a minimum, and it is good that the existing are mechanical, not sensory ones. The elegant find of designers is the united icon of the handbrake and the Parking mode. All the same, in most modern cars, the parking brake setting automatically occurs when transmitting the transmission into P. instead of the selector here is the button – the solution is not new, but not the most common. And quite convenient – both in other cars and in an atom.
The interior is quite spacious for such dimensions, and the rear sofa located on the principle of amphitheater enhances this impression. Although in the knees behind is still cramped. In front there is an opportunity to move from one chair to another without leaving the car- as in many micro and minivans. But the finish of the ceiling with a fashionable dark fabric, on the contrary, the “feeling of air” is somewhat hidden.
Dmitry Laskov
The test trip took place at the cardodhome, so red-white fences flashing in the windshield in combination with the rudder fixed in the upper steering of the steering wheel naturally “broke my brain”. After all, this is how the telemetry screen on racing maps is attached! But in this case, nothing to do with active driving was supposed – the organizers allocated just a couple of minutes behind the wheel, accompanying the hard timing with a strict speed restriction.
Atom 
Atom 
Atom
In such conditions, it is difficult to understand something about the car, but I managed to notice the responsive steering wheel (control “by wires” has not yet been implemented), moderate rolls, understandable pedal reactions. The dynamics was not impressed, but it can be called enough-approximately like Evolute I-Sky.
On the other hand, acceleration should not surprise, the car is not at all about it. Decent power and torque (204 hp/400 N ∙ m) here so that a rather heavy (almost 2 tons) compact has a reserve for acceleration necessary for comfort and traffic safety. The large mass, by the way, is not too noticeable in motion.
The declared acceleration of up to 100 km/h takes 8 seconds, but the test machine subjectively seemed less dynamic-acceleration was felt in terms of intensity approximately like a 10-second
Atom
All this suggests that the developers made a car that is easy to drive. A lot of questions remain without answers: is the stabilization system for a comfortable driving in the rear -wheel drive car in the winter are well tuned; What is controllability and stability at higher speeds; how much the energy intensive suspension; What is acoustic comfort. Also, it was not yet the opportunity to evaluate the work of the driver’s assistants ADAS, projector or multimedia system – all of the above on the prototype was deactivated.
This gallery contains various stages of prototyping in order of order of their implementation
Atom 
Development begins with a digital model, which is a mathematical description of all key components of the future machine
Atom 
The following are the test stands for the development and testing of electricians and electronics, as well as some other systems
Atom 
Ergonomic layouts are created in parallel, the task of which is to test user experience when interacting with elements and functions of the interior and exterior
Atom 
A functional prototype is a platform of the future car capable of moving, covered by an arbitrary body suitable for testing. With such a prototype, you can engage in general chassis settings and check global technical hypotheses
Atom 
A pre -production prototype is already a car that is as close to the serial option. It is debugging the work of all systems – from the access mechanism to the salon to thin settings of the power plant
Atom 
The next stage is verification cars designed to verify the compliance of all components with the requirements of the design, as well as the performance of systems in the complex, passive safety, corrosion resistance and other tests
Atom 
The final stage is the release of a series of vehicles to check assembly operations in all areas, training of personnel of production, working out logistics, checking equipment performance
Atom
I have met different pre -production cars – sometimes copies that are no different from conveyor are called so, this is a question of interpretation of the term by one or another manufacturer. Now we have been shown in many respects manually and by roundabout technologies of the atom. We can say the pre -personnel. This is noticeable both in the quality of details and assembly, and in the set of systems available for evaluation during the test drive systems.
In addition to the aforementioned, there was no way to evaluate, for example, the recovery and its work modes. But the developers assure that in the serial machine there will also be a crawling mode (when the electric car is touching when the brake is released, as occurs on the usual “automatic”), and a full -fledged riding of one pedal – when in urban traffic you can only occasionally resort to classical brakes.
Thanks to the rear drive, the turning radius turned out to be less than 5 meters. During the maneuver, you feel like a dog in the car, which seeks to grab the tail of your teeth – so willingly the front axle strives where the back was just the back
Atom
There is a nuance with a augmented reality system-so far the developers have only a projection display (which we also have not seen in action), and the AR supervision is currently not implemented. Let me remind you: augmented reality is not just graphics in the windshield, but a technology that places virtual signs in the physical reality that we observe in front of us while driving. For example, when a drawn arrow hangs directly above the turn, in the direction of which indicates.
Atom
Representatives of the atom assured that they want to expand the functionality of this system with the basic and the most obvious navigation to tourist notes and other useful information that pops up before the driver’s eyes in the process of movement. For this, it is planned to cooperate with the suppliers of tourism services: then the atom will be able to diversify the trip to the unfamiliar city with live hints – what kind of lake, monastery or monument is in front of the eyes.
Atom
But these are fairly distant plans, and at the start of sales, the creators of the machine make a bet on the convenience of a voice assistant based on artificial intelligence and deep integration with large developers’ services. As well as the very concept of the “at car”-an affordable and technological train for users who are used to using modern IT solutions. Deliveries, shering, remote access, gamies of everything and everything.
Elektrokar Atom: The first short trip on the prototype look at the swing doors of the electric car atom Russian Electrocard atom: All details
In this context, an atom as a car is just enough to be understandable, convenient and safe. It is unlikely that the target audience will be demanding on dynamics, controllability and everything else that we, by inertia, continue to evaluate the first thing in cars. The time comes the time-at least for some of the users interested in them-and from this side the atom looks relevant. But we can check it in this role only in the following meetings with the developers and their product. /m
