Renault presents futuristic autonomous car designs

Collaborations with industrial design students include wearable "car suit"

Car manufacturer Renault has collaborated with industrial design students to determine how autonomous driving and the result of less driver interaction could impact the design of vehicles. 

The groups’ design concepts were assessed by an expert judging panel that included Anthony Lo,  vice-president of Exterior Design at Renault, and were showcased at an event in London.

For many years now autonomous features have featured heavily in modern cars, with the aim of negating and reducing crashes. But design prototypes of driverless cars currently are similar to cars already on the roads today with a regular seating layout and a driver sitting behind a wheel. Fully-autonomous cars will be able to almost eliminate collisions and are therefore able to offer a great deal more freedom for manufacturers to experiment with interiors. 

Through the partnership, nine groups of three students were tasked with determining how autonomous driving and the result of less driver interaction could impact on a vehicle’s interior. The winning group of students produced a wearable autonomous car.

The team said: “The Renault Oura is a vehicular 'suit' that gives the wearer/rider the feeling of weightlessly flying through a cityscape while still on the road. As autonomous technologies have the potential to eliminate collisions, it is possible to radically reduce the physicality of a vehicle designed to absorb impact.”

Renault's Lo said: “We are committed to introducing autonomous driving vehicles by 2020, with the ambition to become the first to offer eyes-off, hands-off technology on mainstream vehicles at an affordable price.

“The possibility of autonomous cars provides many opportunities for the industry. Currently, cars look the same because they have to adhere to a certain shape and dimensions for safety purposes, but soon this is all about to change. In the future, we will be able to experiment far more with weight, aerodynamics and powertrain, for example, allowing us to make the design even better.”

The autonomous car could also provide challenges for manufacturers also. Lo explained: “Autonomous cars could also create challenges for designers to find new ways of innovating, and one challenge is making a unique brand experience when autonomous technology comes into play – how will you differentiate yourselves when there are no design barriers?”

In April Renault showcased its emerging autonomous drive technologies to a select group of European policy makers. The European Union’s 28 transport ministers gathered in Amsterdam to sign the Amsterdam Declaration in favour of autonomous vehicles, with Renault revealing three ‘Renault Espace Autonomous Drive demonstrators’ which have already been trialled for several hundred hours in ordinary traffic across Europe.