Volkswagen celebrates debut of mobility research

Volkswagen has teamed up with Architect and Urbanist Rem Koolhaas, and AMO, an internationally acclaimed research and design studio for the Office for Metropolitan Architecture (OMA), to collaborate on a project that reveals the radical changes and transformations being made to the world's countryside.

The public opening of an exhibition named, Countryside, The Future at the Guggenheim Museum in New York City marks the first step of an advanced e-mobility project developed by Volkswagen with Koolhaas.

The project will study the viability for an electric tractor and its related infrastructure designed to help facilitate small-scale agriculture and increase the productivity of subsistence farmers while also improving power-supply and mobility in sub-Saharan Africa.

The suggested e-tractor would not be sold to individuals, but leased by communes and shared amongst villagers and smallholder-farmers, helping to enable individuals who cannot afford to buy their own equipment access to the specialised equipment. The design of the electric tractor's ecosystem taps into the extremely high solar radiation present with a network of solar charging stations.

This project is the first of a broader collaboration between Volkswagen and AMO. The joint initiative further deepens Volkswagen's commitment to social responsibility and cultural engagement. The next step for the e-tractor project will be setting up relationships between Volkswagen Group South Africa and different African collaborators, universities and stakeholders to share knowledge on the technical system and its implication on local communities.