You Won’t Believe What This Futuristic Car Can Do
The future of transportation is coming – and it looks freaking awesome. By now self-driving cars are a concept we hear about often but have yet to see on the road outside of Mountain View. We’ve all been anxiously waiting a nationwide release date for the self-driving Google Car and hoping to score a ride in the Navia golf cart. Considering driverless cars are expected to make up 75% of car sales by 2035, it looks like we’d better start getting our heads around this Jetsons-type transportation.
Dominic Wilcox is already there and has most definitely arrived in style. The designer crafted a driverless, stained glass sleeper car of the future. Wilcox proposes that by 2059 it will be statistically proven to be safer to ride in a computer-controlled driverless vehicle than a human-driven vehicle. If this is the case, why not switch up our car’s interior? Without the need for a steering wheel or airbags, cars could become a living space on wheels rather than merely a mode of transportation.
The English designer had the idea after seeing the stained glass at Durham Cathedral. But he needed a little bit of help. He began working with Middlesex University’s Product Design Department, who helped him create a wooden frame using a CNC machine, which cuts out shapes from wood. The structure was then taken back to Wilcox’s workshop where he installed all the glass using a traditional copper foiling technique (the same way Tiffany lamps are made). It was then taken back to the university and installed with the same 10-inch wheels used for Mini Coopers. It’s refreshing to see a future vessel being crafted using both old and new technology.
As of now the car is for artistic purposes only. It was recently on display at the London Design Festival. But as for the idea behind the design? Wilcox is 100% serious about that. To accompany the stained glass sleeper car, he also created a website concept called Taxi Robot. Think of it like Lyft, but 100 times cooler and launching in the year 2059 for users ordering a bespoke vehicle to pick them up.
On the site, customers first choose how big of a car they’d like (one to six people). Then which interior they prefer: a workout space, an office, a hot tub, basic seating (why?), a dining car or a sun bed (where cloud avoidance routes are taken… obviously). Next, pick what you’d like as the exterior: You can opt for the stained glass car, the St. Paul’s Cathedral car or the tree house transporter. Finally, select the time you’d like it to pick you up and you’re all set.
So basically what Wilcox is telling us is that by 2059 our annual four-hour trek to the parent’s house could be less of a traffic-ridden nightmare and more of a tree house dining adventure. If this is where the future of transportation is headed, it can’t come quick enough for us!
Are you as excited about this futuristic idea as we are? Which combo would you pick from Wilcox’s Taxi Robot service?
