Honda and the Istituto Europeo di Design (IED) have collaborated and are all set to unveil the Tomo concept at the Geneva Motor Show. The Tomo was previewed last month, it is a compact electric vehicle that is inspired from the Urban EV concept which debuted at the Frankfurt Motor Show in 2017. While the Urban EV concept was created in-house, the Tomo is developed as part of a thesis project by 13 students from IED Torino who are working on getting their master’s degree in transportation design.
Tomo is the Japanese word for friend and it is hence supposed to be a “faithful companion” that can be adapted to fit the needs of its owner. While much details weren’t revealed, the images show that the Tomo can be converted from a small coupe into a tiny pickup truck.
IED stated that the students were tasked with creating the “ideal means of transport for young people in the next six years.” Just like in the real world, the students spent months planning and researching their creation which is described as part “smart device” and part “mobility tool.”
The main exterior design was created by Ricardo Alejandro Campos Ortega, while Rudraksh Banerjie was responsible for the cabin. These winning designs, selected by Honda, were then further refined by the team which also included Tanmay Madhukar Chavan, Michele Corneliani, Shobhanjit Das, Alexander Marcel Fröse, Xiaole Ge, Ramón Emmanuel Hernández Cortés, Tianchen Huang, Sameer Aminullah Khan, Saketh Nalla, Jay Shrikant Nibandhe and Yu-Jie Wang.
The Tomo concept will be unveiled next month while the full-scale version of the car was built by EDAG Italia. The Tomo concept won’t be going into production, however, Honda has already confirmed plans to launch a road-going version of the Urban EV later this year.