Two of the world’s biggest automakers are thinking, and riding, outside the box with their latest driverless vehicle concepts.
Two of the world’s biggest automakers – Volkswagen and Toyota – are experimenting with boxy cars in the increasingly busy sandbox of autonomous vehicles. Their most recent boxes of driverless tricks are the Sedric School Bus and the e-Palette.
The newest version of the VW Sedric (short for Self Driving Car) is a design exercise that makes the school run more fun for children and less tedious for their parents.
With the Sedric’s OneButton mobility app, which “hails” the self-driving electric shuttle to provide a door-to-door transfer anytime within its radius of operation, even primary-school kids can hitch a little bus ride home easily and safely, but only in theory at this juncture. They will like the ride, too, thanks to the Sedric cabin’s stylised graffiti, stickered aluminium multi-purpose boxes and a large OLED screen to provide onboard entertainment – maybe The Magic School Bus.
The e-Palette is Toyota’s “blank box” concept, which provides a flexible platform for partner companies to create and deploy purpose-built autonomous vehicles that help their businesses and serve their customers.
E-commerce giant Amazon, restaurant chain Pizza Hut and ride-sharing tech firms Uber and Didi, along with automaker Mazda, are collaborating with Toyota on the e-Palette programme.
The vehicle is fully automated, battery-powered and readily customisable, and it comes with an open-source control interface, a set of software tools and the necessary road safety systems. The low-floor, cube-shaped interior with a choice of three sizes has the “empty” versatility to be outfitted according to business or vocational needs.
Two of the world’s biggest automakers are thinking, and riding, outside the box with their latest driverless vehicle concepts.
A self-driving vehicle may deliver pizza to you in the near future.
