Concept Cars: New Technologies for the 21st Century

“Are we there yet?” A question very familiar to parents traveling with children in the car. But it also is a question anxiously being asked by drivers and their passengers during what we keep hearing is this transitional time of personalized, automotive transportation. Once we get there, we’re told, our cars will be driving themselves. All we’ll need to do is to tell the vehicle where we desire to be and then ride along as we are whisked along in a vehicle that emits no pollution, nor will it crash because it will be in constant communication with all the vehicles around it whether it is hurrying down the highway or simply carrying us to work or play, or school or the store. We aren’t there yet, but those who produce our vehicles assure us that we are getting closer. One of the ways they make such assurances is to give us glimpses of that future in the form of concept or “dream” cars, 3-dimensional previews of where they see “there” to be. But more than shapes designed to draw our attention, these dream cars are just as much, perhaps even more so, about technological advancements. Such blending of design and engineering has accelerated in the 21st Century as automakers — those in business for decades and those quite new to the enterprise — seek to inspire customers with styling that can range from purely practical, small but roomy vehicles, to those that are sleek and sexy, but all of them showcasing technology designed to make driving safer, cleaner, and even more fun. The mission is to lower emissions, reduce congestion, even eliminate collisions while assuring the individual mobility that has made the automobile such a powerful and influential part of a modern life and lifestyle that is reaching into every geographic part of the planet Are we there yet? Not quite, but is book’s aim is to offer a glimpse of what might be once we arrive.