Featured Image Credit: Luvly
Topics: UK News, Cars, Technology
Rhiannon Ingle
You've heard of flat-pack coffee tables, desks and even bed frames - but there's a whole new thing to add to the list of things that comes neatly packaged up in a box.
While IKEA gave the world flat-pack furniture, a fellow Swedish company, technology firm Luvly, has just produced the Luvly O - a new electric car for the city.
The newly-designed vehicle could be spotted on British roads by the end of the year.
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The Luvly O car weighs just a fifth of the weight of most electric vehicles and even has a portable battery that you can take into the office to charge from your desk.
Costing less than £10,000, the car's biggest selling point is that it is delivered in a flat-pack form to factories across the world to assemble.
Håkan Lutz, chief executive and founder of Luvly, told The Telegraph: "If it were legally and technologically possible to assemble in your house, we would think that would be a good thing, but sadly on both of those counts, it is not."
I mean, considering many of us can't even put a flat-pack Billy bookcase together without having at least three mental breakdowns - it's probably a good thing that factories do the work for us so there's no faffing around with pesky allen keys.
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The tech company has moved away from the traditional car manufacturing model, with Lutz explaining: "The whole technological platform makes it possible for us to ship the components parts in containers, in a cost and space efficient way, the cars are simple and light and can easily be put together.
"The production is optimised for micro factories, so we can produce these vehicles not in a mega factory somewhere but near to where they are going to be used."
The city car Luvly O has a top speed of around 55mph and the battery will provide a distance range of 62 miles.
"I think these would suit the UK absolutely perfectly," the CEO stated. "The bigger the city, the more sense one of these cars makes."
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Brits can purchase the car for £8,700 a pop with the full launch expected to take place in the second half of this year.
Lutz said: "The plan is to get started as soon as possible but you know development of new technology always takes a bit more time than you wish for, we are hopeful to have some cars on the roads this year."