back to article Designers detail the cars of 2030

Ever wondered what the progeny of today's gadget obsessed ‘yoof’ will be driving come the year 2030? Honda_Helix Honda's Helix would access your DNA's double helix That was the question recently posed to designers from some of the world’s top car makers – those with studios in California, anyway - as part of the Los …

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  1. seanj
    Troll

    V2G UNLMTD

    "Nissan presumably also thinks that vowels will have been outlawed by 2030."

    You know that the letter "U" is a vowel, right?

  2. The Original Ash

    Re-inventing the wheel?

    These all seem to be based upon ground transport with very little actual innovation.

    I picture Segway as the future of transport, only without the wheels; A sphere, very much like the wheels on the Audi "car" in I,Robot" (Will Smith version) With passengers either standing upright or suspended in a harness.

  3. Alexander 3
    FAIL

    What's the use?

    Why do people spend so much time drawing up these concepts and then predict that's what cars will look like?

    None of those designs have any redeeming technical features as far as I can see. Every one of them will be less suitable as a means of transport than pretty much any modern car. The designer's bold statements of cheap price, building materials and powr source are hollow - just said to make them sound a little more chic, with no consideration of practicalities.

    I mean, by all means make predictions of the future, but if you're going to, have some rational behind them. These are purely artworks and belong in an art magazine or futuristic movie, not a technical news site...

    Hmm, strange how I get so worked up about this!

  4. Nux Vomica

    Yes, we used to draw these when we were kids too....

    Nice doodles, but bugger all relation to reality. The vast majority of us will be driving the same dino burning piles of scrap we're driving now, peak oil or not.

    I remember much the same kind of "predictions" illustrated in Custom Car magazine and Tomorrows World in the '70's, and I don't see much of that parked outside at the moment.

  5. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Yeah right...

    Exercise in mental masturbation.

    I'd like to know why all these 'future cars' have to be so fscking impractical. How the hell do you get in or out one? where do you put your groceries? your luggage? and more important: what the heck were they smoking when they draw those pos and can I have some?

  6. Saopaulo101
    Paris Hilton

    too much tv?

    Is it just me or does GM's hero look a lot like the "IT" from a certain Southpark episode?

  7. spacca

    Car Designers

    OK, so they spout out some nice shinny designs and come up with interesting propulsion units and use crazy new materials BUT there is something wrong with this picture as there is with a vast majority of conceptual stuff. The framework or environment these things need to work in.

    It's like MS's Natal. A great idea and a good sound bite but unless you live in a house with masses of room it's a turkey. Same goes for many of the transport concepts wide-eyed designers produce. It's all well and good to come up with these new ideas but they still have to run on conventional roads. Do you really see any of these things dealing with a pothole? I hear expensive bits breaking off already.

    Perhaps they ought to spend more time on actually designing things which answer real world problems rather than making up answers to questions nobody would ever really want to ask...

  8. Anonymous Coward
    Thumb Up

    South Park

    That's Mr Garrison's It from GM there,

    I wonder if the Flexi-grips insert in the same places?

  9. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    hmmmmm

    The Souga looks god damn sexy but is a bloody silly idea.

  10. GettinSadda
    FAIL

    Not again!

    What is it about these "let's look into the future" gigs that brings all the weirdos out of the woodwork?

    2030 is only 20 years away, yet these "cars" are all ridiculously futuristic.

    The difference between cars today and 20 years in the future should not be that much different than what we find when we compare what we had 20 years in the past with today.

    Take a look at: http://preview.tinyurl.com/cars-1990

    They don't look all that different to what we all drive today do they?

  11. Mark Lockwood
    FAIL

    Oi, Car Designers

    Where's my flying car? And where's my flying car icon gone?

  12. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Cars of the future?

    Give me a Halo style Ghost (with or without plasma cannons)

  13. Andrew Bush
    Jobs Horns

    Research

    Perhaps a good starting point for these 'designers' would have been to take a look at what cars looked like 20 years ago to see how much they have changed since then?

    My prediction? A car will be available from Apple which comes in just two colours and runs on special Apple 'fuel' which is subscribed to under contract depending on how many miles you wish to drive each month.

  14. Petr 1
    FAIL

    Flying car?

    Where is my flying car????

  15. Mike Wharton
    FAIL

    RE: Alexander

    Agree with Alexander - Drives me mad as well.

    What a load of garbage.

  16. Dale 3

    Fugly

    Let's all hope these aren't the designers designing cars in 2030. Is anyone going to design something that doesn't look stupid?

  17. Tom Adair

    Woof

    Sure, the shopping can be delivered etc, but where are my dogs going to fit into those cars? Or are they planning on pets being outlawed too?

  18. Alex King
    FAIL

    No, silly, stupid, wrong

    As several others have said, cars twenty years from now will continue to evolve in the same way as the past twenty years. That is, 20% bigger, 20% heavier and 20% more efficient. I would stake both gonads on cars of the future having wheels, doors and steering wheels, and we won't be sharing them from "hubs" - that's what's known as a 'bus' or, if they come to you, a 'taxi'.

    Special contempt for the movement sensitive controls. What the feck do I have now? See, how the merest flick of my wrist makes the vehicle change direction, and the slightest twitch of my foot can make the car go faster, or slow down. Silly cocks.

  19. Paul E

    does the GM hero..

    run using the android OS as well?

  20. Sailfish
    Joke

    You've Got To Be Kidding!

    'nuf said.

  21. Kevin McMurtrie Silver badge
    Thumb Down

    Tomorrow's roads will eat your car

    Based on trends in government budget management, I predict that the asphalt of tomorrow will have bigger, more futuristic potholes and hefty chunks of nanofabric patchwork breaking loose in the rain. Why the fixation with tiny wheels on future cars? Why can't they just hover?

  22. idasben
    FAIL

    GM Concept?

    Surely this should have been a blank sheet of paper? until a month or so ago, GM were looking at a decidedly blank future.

    Also, re: someone comparing this to Xbox Natal, how is that the same? these, ridiculous drawings with no technical specifications just marketing speak. Natal, an actual product, people have tested them and used the live and it works, and unless you sit with your head pressed against the screen already, you've probably got a house that's big enough.

  23. Pete James

    Idiots

    Every time this sort of article appears the mentally challenged bang their keyboards. It's depressing to see so many people display such contempt for others who have the capacity to think creatively and make a stage for new ideas.

    The only sentiment I would agree with is the continuing use of wheels. But then, reading the sheer blinkered hatred towards any alternative means of propulsion that exists both within here and elsewhere, one wonders if the hard work put in by some people to move us on from the last hundred years of obsession about the car is wasted on the dulled, myopic and fearful halfwits such as those above.

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