Kalashnikov unveils car of the future, but Russians see relic
MOSCOW — What do you get when a staid Russian weapons manufacturer designs a “concept” electric car and a futuristic robot? Apparently, you get a car based on a Soviet-era design and an ungainly monster more than 13 feet tall that many people doubt is capable of moving.
The Kalashnikov Concern of rifle fame introduced the two potential products to a round of laughs and jeers in Moscow this week, touting them as proof that Russia is capable of producing innovative goods for the global economy.
The electric car will compete with the market leader, Tesla, boasted a company spokeswoman, while the robot prototype was supposedly designed to undertake both combat and engineering tasks.
According to a spokesperson for the company, which was privatized last year, the car can accelerate from zero to more than 60 mph in 6 seconds, and its battery gives it a range of more than 200 miles.
“We are talking about competing with Tesla precisely because it’s currently a successful vehicle project,” the spokesperson told the RBC news website. “We expect to at least keep up with it.”
The Russian internet was having none of it. Memes mocking the concept car and questions about whether the robot was actually mobile proliferated across social media.
To test a rocket in February, the founder of Tesla, Elon Musk, famously launched his roadster into space. So observers began creating pictures of the clunky concept car showing it, too, in orbit.
Of course, Tesla has problems of its own that make the idea of a competitor, even a Russian competitor, seem less far-fetched than it once might have. But it did not help matters that ordinary Soviet-era cars do not fit anybody’s concept of sleek or sexy. And Kalashnikov’s CV-1 electric vehicle is based on a boxy Soviet hatchback, the Izh, that was introduced in 1973.
The concept car had no side mirrors.