Although self-driving semi trucks like the Mercedes-Benz Actros and full-size luxury family-hauling SUVs like the Volvo XC90 are important to the world of full-scale vehicle autonomy, so, too, are cars like the Rinspeed "Σtos." Although the concept is vaporware (an announced product that will never be manufactured), it's nonetheless significant because it proves that even stylish driving enthusiasts have a happy place in the cars of the future.
Its sports car styling isn't the most intriguing part of this concept, which will be officially unveiled next January at the 2016 Consumer Electronics Show (CES). Instead, what is most compelling is its interior "magic," which is how Rinspeed describes it in its press release.
The Swiss automaker and tuning designer brags that when in "autonomous" mode, the steering wheel of the hybrid sports car not only folds up but also tucks away into the dash. Then the two in-dash infotainment screens move closer toward the front occupants, giving them a better view.
Perhaps most intriguingly of all, the Σtos also comes with its own drone to, as the company hypothesizes, "fetch a bouquet of flowers the driver ordered online and even deliver it directly to the lucky recipient." When it's done, it lands safely on its very own landing pad on the car's rear deck lid. How it stays in place at, say, freeway speeds, Rinspeed doesn't specify.
Hideaway steering wheel and flower-fetching drone aside, the Rinspeed is actually onto something with the autonomous sports car concept. Some analysts have imagined the world of autonomous cars being populated solely by compact hatchbacks and Smartcar-size subcompacts. This ignores people's eternal desire to express themselves with their cars and keep up with the Joneses — a fire not even self-driving cars can extinguish.
Plus, Audi engineers have even admitted to me that autonomous modes of future models could include "sport" modes, in which the car drives itself sportily. Admittedly, this sounds slightly silly. But it could be something automakers could do to distinguish their sportier self-driving cars in the future.
As it stands now, though, don't expect to see any self-driving car lose its steering wheel — even momentarily. Federal law will likely never allow for that. In terms of helper drones, though. Stranger things have happened.
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