Mini is planning for a future when traditional vehicle ownership is to be optional and its model line is to consist of free-floating robo-cars.
The Mini Vision Next 100 electric concept car picks up passengers autonomously, changes color to fit each new driver’s preferences, and parks and recharges without human intervention, the automaker said in a presentation yesterday in London.
It was a window into parent BMW AG’s soul-searching over the urban car market of the coming decades, showing the company believes drivers would not be necessary and all vehicles would need built-in adaptability for shared ownership.
Photo: Bloomberg
“In the not-too-distant future, most vehicles will probably be completely self-driving — people will get around in robots on wheels,” BMW said in a statement. “How will we justify the existence of vehicles by BMW, a brand for whom the individual and sheer driving pleasure are the focus of everything?”
BMW is facing both current and future challenges. This year, the namesake marque is likely to lose its sales leadership in luxury cars to Mercedes-Benz for the first time since 2005. After basing its identity on luxurious Autobahn-speed exhilaration, BMW might face more difficulty than rivals in keeping its brand desirable, as cars automate and consumer attitudes about owning a vehicle change.
BMW’s answer has been to give drivers a choice between using the latest in self-driving technology and taking the wheel themselves for more of a thrill. It presented the Mini alongside a Rolls-Royce concept yesterday after doing the same in March for its BMW brand. BMW chief executive officer Harald Krueger said last month that the company would introduce its first electric flagship car with autonomous features in 2021.
The self-chauffeured coupe-style Rolls-Royce concept is a bid to merge self-driving and connected technology into an ultra-luxury brand known for features such as hand embroidery and a drop-down backseat picnic table made of 500 pieces of wood.
The nearly 6m-long vehicle includes an intelligent electronic assistant named Eleanor — Rolls-Royce’s answer to Apple Inc’s Siri — after the model who inspired the car’s hood ornament.
A roof that opens along with the rear door means passengers would be able to stand to exit the vehicle.
Technology is opening up “fantastic new possibilities,” BMW chief designer Adrian van Hooydonk said in the statement, describing a future in which “interactions between human, machine and surroundings become seamless.”
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