Have you seen the new BMW concept car? In celebration of its centenary, the automaker recently unveiled the Vision Next 100, a vehicle unlike anything that's ever hit the road. Picture a futuristic supercar crossed with a lizard and you start to get a sense of the off-the-charts awesomeness of this beast.
Using what BMW dubs "materials of the future," the vehicle's wheels move under a kind of exoskeleton that's part of the main chassis. The car can be driven in both manual and autonomous (driverless) mode. The interior has a steering wheel that retracts, Transformers-style, along with the center console. Seats and doors swivel and click into a single unit so that the driver and front-seat passenger can face each other. Augmented reality maximizes the driving experience by indicating the ideal driving line and flashing alerts on the windshield monitor if a pedestrian or cyclist crosses in front of the vehicle.
The future also comes with responsibility. The Vision is made primarily out of recycled materials and environmentally-friendly renewable resources, similar to BMW's i8 and i3, and features less wood and leather than other vehicles. It's unlikely that the Vision will turn up at showrooms anytime soon but it's great to know someone is thinking about cars like these with so much creativity and panache.
