Microlino: the Swiss bubble car
Scaling up in 2023: the Microlino bubble EV
Inspired by the BMW Isetta bubble car: the Microlino
Microlino is tiny, at just 2.5m long
Front-hinged door for Microlino
Microlino interior: spartan
► Inside the tiny new Microlino EV► BMW’s Isetta bubble car reimagined!
► Swiss engineered, 140-mile range
Is this the return of the bubble car? Two Swiss brothers are returning to the downsized delight of the BMW’s Isetta era with a tiny new electric car: the Microlino that is set for series production in 2023.
It’s a diminutive EV inspired by 1950s bubble cars and is designed for urban use at affordable prices. The start-up is ambitiously quoting a target price from just 15,000 Swiss francs (£13,350 at time of writing).
Brothers Oliver and Merlin Ouboter have designed the Microlino at their headquarters in Kuesnacht, Switzerland. Low-volume production is already underway and the company plans to launch elsewhere in Europe in 2023.
What is the Microlino?
‘We realised that with 1.2 people sitting in a car on average and a distance driven of just around 35 km (22 miles), modern cars are far too big for what they are actually used for,’ said co-founder Merlin Ouboter. Hence the idea to revive tiny bubble-car-era design, with their quirky front door.
The Microlino is just 2.5 metres long, making it easy to park (the makers claim you can squeeze three into one conventional space), and weighs in at just 496kg. It’s a virtuous circle: low mass and a tiny footprint means the electric powertrain uses less energy, so smaller lithium-ion batteries are required. It’s a wonderful tonic to the spiralling weight of modern cars (especially electric ones).
Buyers can choose between 6kWh, 10.5kWh and 14kWh battery capacities and the company quotes recharging times between three and four hours, depending on the size of cell. Range is calculated at 56, 110 or 143 miles.
It’s a strict two-seater and the boot is 230 litres, enough for a daily shop and trips around town, according to its makers. Performance? Zero to 30mph takes around five seconds and top speed is capped at 56mph.
Micro: the company behind the Microlino
Micro was founded in 1999 by Wim Ouboter who launched the Kickscooter and claims to have invented the micromobility movement with 90 million scooters sold. In 2013, it launched its first e-scooter and went on to collaborate with BMW, Mercedes-Benz and Peugeot.
The Microlino quadricycle project started in 2015 led by Ouboter’s two sons, Merlin and Oliver, and has suffered numerous setbacks along the way to production. Low-volume build started with Italian partner Cecomp in Turin in summer 2022 and is set to be ramped up in 2023. More than 35,000 people have reserved a Microlino, the company claims.
‘The idea was to create an alternative to conventional cars,’ Oliver told Reuters. ‘The Microlino does that much better than bicycles – it’s weather protected, you have space for cargo, you can have two people sitting next to each other.’
Brother Merlin added: ‘Because it’s smaller than a conventional car it consumes less material to make it, and it has a smaller battery which means it uses less electricity. So the ecological footprint is about a third of a conventional electric car.’
Keyword: Microlino: the battery bubble car inspired by BMW's Isetta