When I was a child, every week in ‘The Eagle’ comic, I would read about the continuing adventures of Dan Dare, a space-age hero, whom ‘existed’ in a futuristic world of individual travel-pods, hectically busy skies and primary coloured jump-suits. The irony was that Mr Dare projected an image of clean-living, in a confusingly complex pursuit of a Venusian life-form known as the Treens, a misshapen race trying to carry out sinister research into our world, somewhere in the future.
The Mekon was the leader of this hyper-intelligent race, his head swollen to oversized proportions to contain his intellect, while his green body was atrophied to a level of mobile disability, which demanded the use of a levitating ‘chair’. It was clear, even in the 1960s, that we were being prepared for something different, with questionable connotations being raised about alternative life forces.
Growing-up in the 1960s and 1970s, I benefited from the increasing relevance of personal mobility, the ready availability and accessibility of many different forms of transport. As you are probably aware, cars became a personal fascination for me. However, with so many vehicles in existence, our sceptred isles have become over-crowded, sometimes unsafe and they have constituted a contributory factor in growing pollution levels…but is it all ‘doom and gloom’? Well, governments around the world give the impression that a controlling shift needs to be put into place.
While the world of ‘Darwinism’ might suggest that some of us are fated to be involved in a fatal accident and every potential tax-payer’s death should be avoidable, the numbers involving motorised transport are enough to send shudders up the spines of politicians. In their ‘ideal world’, curbing speeds, wrapping the public in cotton-wool and reducing fatalities to zero is the only answer. It was not just the EU that provided Volvo with its destiny.
The Chinese-owned but Swedish-based carmaker has been in the forefront of vehicle safety, almost since its inception. Around fifteen years ago, it stated its aim that, by 2020, no lives would be lost by drivers of its vehicles involved in road traffic incidents. Intriguingly, its 20:20 vision has been achieved, almost. The firm’s brazen statements gave it a powerful status, one recognised by governments, which led to Volvo becoming a leader in semi- and fully-autonomous driver aids developments. Thus, its latest pronouncements and concepts for completely driverless transport, whereby removal of the only variable in progression (apart from mechanical/electrical failure), the human, are completely comprehensible.
Imagine a world, in which you can travel long distances, without a need for airports, or railway stations; a world in which you can avoid penetrating security, hours of queuing and waiting, and noisy, cramped planes and trains. If, instead, you could take your own first-class private cabin that collects you from home and deposits you from door to door, how would you feel?
This is Volvo’s vision for an autonomous travel future, with its new Volvo 360c concept; an holistic view of autonomy that is electric, connected, driverless and safe. Volvo Cars believes it might be the change that we all need. It is a concept that capitalises on the freedom in design afforded by the absence of a steering wheel and a combustion engine, while providing an ability to reimagine the traditional placement of passengers in rows of two, or three.
It presents four potential applications: a sleeping environment, a mobile office, a living room and an entertainment space, while also proposing a global standard in how autonomous vehicles can communicate safely and fluently with all other road-users.
Håkan Samuelsson, President and CEO of Volvo Cars, said: “The transport business will change in coming years and Volvo should lead that change. Autonomous drive will allow us to take the next big step in safety but also open up exciting new business models and allow consumers to spend time in the car doing what they want to do.”
What the airline, train and bus industries think about this potential assault on their home ground is not reported. However, shorter routes, where the distance between origin and destination is around 150 to 200 miles, are prime candidates for a disruptive and alternative mode of travel. To be frank, it could work well in the United States, where domestic travel is immensely inefficient, time-consuming and costly.
Beyond new potential customer groups for Volvo Cars’ business, the 360c also carries implications for the future of travel, city planning, infrastructure and modern society’s environmental footprint. It not only reimagines how people travel but also looks at how people engage with friends and family, while on the move, and how they can recapture time, while travelling in the cities of the future.
Autonomous vehicle concepts tend to become technological showcases, instead of visions of how people might use them. There is a hope that, because Volvo lives up to its human-centric stance, there may exist more than just satisfaction of governmental aspirations. The 360c could be the next iteration of that approach, although it is a deliberate step towards instigating broader discussions about the potential for autonomous driving technology to change society fundamentally.
When the Wright brothers took to the skies in 1903, they had no clues about what modern air travel would look like. When Dan Dare raced around my childhood earth (and beyond), there were few clues of how road transport might look. Volvo intends to have a profound impact on the future of personal transport and 360c is a conversation-starter, with more ideas and answers to come as we learn more.
