Have people made you feel guilty about taking your car to the nearby grocery store? Here’s a slap to their face known as the FitCar PPV. A Saudi-based inventor, Nasser Al Shawaf, and Dutch engineering partner, BPO, have created the world’s first calorie-burning car, the FitCar PPV. The FitCar is a genuine pedal-powered vehicle wherein you find a pedal mechanism instead of an accelerator pedal.

What You Reap Is What You Sow

A flywheel connected to the mechanism engages the accelerator. In short, your pedal inputs will be converted into throttle action by the car’s electronics; so the harder you pedal, the faster the car accelerates and vice-versa.

What Do They Have To Say?

In an interview, Nasser Al Shawaf said, “I work in many cities around the world where a 60-minute-plus car commute, each-way, each day is not uncommon”.“This is an unhealthy way to waste more than two hours every day. So, I came up with the idea of the FitCar – which does exactly the same as any conventional car – getting us safely and comfortably from A to B, however in the FitCar you can exercise while you drive.”

“Our ambition is for the technology to be either adopted by a car manufacturer for a new generation of ‘healthier’ city cars, or for us simply to offer it as a conversion kit to the after-market for those wishing to add PPV as an optional active extra to their car.”

It Comes With Different Drive Modes!

First, there is ‘Drive Slow’, which is for slow moving traffic. The next setting is the ‘Drive Fast’ setup, which helps you pedal your way on the highways and a ‘No Drive’ setting that will actually keep you standing still while you continue exercising using the pedals. Just like a regular bicycle, this car also has a rotary dial on the pedals which helps you adjust the resistance.

What’s intriguing is that manufacturer can actually give you specifications like the performance, economy, etc., despite the fact that it’s all based on your pedaling inputs. As for the braking, the foot pedal has been replaced by a ‘push hand control’. This helps in easier maneuvering, and makes space in the foot-well for the bicycle and flywheel mechanism to be installed.

The FitCar PPV has been patented internationally and is currently awaiting RDW approval, which is a European-type approval certificate in the Netherlands, for road use across Europe. The FitCar PPV helps you burn 300 calories in 30 minutes! Crazy, right?

Our Take

The car not only helps you work on your fitness, but also helps you save the environment; that too in an Audi! What a way to kill two birds with one stone. Would you buy this car? Leave your thoughts in the comments section below.

Further reading

Read our full review on the 2009 Audi A4 Avant.