The Jeep Treo was an electric
concept car
A concept car (also known as a concept vehicle, show vehicle or prototype) is a car made to showcase new styling and/or new technology. They are often exhibited at motor shows to gauge customer reaction to new and radical designs which may or ...
produced by
Chrysler under their
Jeep brand in the early twenty first century. The car was designed to be powered by a hydrogen
fuel cell and had three seats.
It was produced to appeal to a young urban market and was unveiled at the 2003 Tokyo Motor Show.
Design
Designed by the Chrysler Advanced Product Design Center in California, the Jeep Treo was envisaged as "the ultimate student car" to attract young urban drivers.
It was inspired by
anime
is hand-drawn and computer-generated animation originating from Japan. Outside of Japan and in English, ''anime'' refers specifically to animation produced in Japan. However, in Japan and in Japanese, (a term derived from a shortening of ...
concepts.
Power was provided by two electric motors, one mounted on each axle, to give four wheel drive, driven by a hydrogen fuel cell mounted under the floor, to offer a
zero-emissions vehicle
A zero-emission vehicle, or ZEV, is a vehicle that does not emit exhaust gas or other pollutants from the onboard source of power. The California definition also adds that this includes under any and all possible operational modes and conditions ...
. The body had a tapered shape while the cabin had two seats forward with a single seat behind, with the ability to carry mountain bikes at the back.
The car was designed to use drive-by-wire to eliminate the need for heavy and bulky mechanical components, while the driver's controls were modular so that the car could be easily switched from left to right hand drive.
Production
The design was promoted as a vision of urban driving “a decade or more” in the future.
The concept car was well received by motor journalists and a production vehicle was planned powered by a petrol/electric hybrid engine to be launched by 2008.
However, the vehicle remained a one-off build.
See also
*
List of fuel cell vehicles
A fuel cell vehicle is a vehicle that uses a fuel cell to power an electric drive system. There are also hybrid vehicles meaning that they are fitted with a fuel cell and a battery or a fuel cell and an ultracapacitor. For HICEV see List of hy ...
*
List of hybrid vehicles
This is a list of hybrid vehicles, including both regular hybrid electric vehicles and plug-in hybrids in chronological order of first production:
Automobiles
Overview by decade
Early designs: 1899-1917
*1899: Carmaker Pieper of Belgi ...
References
External links
Image gallery at favcars.com
{{Jeep car timeline
All-wheel-drive vehicles
Cars introduced in 2003
Fuel cell vehicles
Hybrid electric vehicles
Hydrogen cars
Treo
Motor vehicles manufactured in the United States