Electric driverless concept car becomes a spare room when it’s not on the road

Though our driverless future isn’t quite here yet, technological and aesthetic developments seem to roll out every week. This week’s update: A concept for an electric autonomous car that syncs with your modern home, from French automaker Renault.

Unveiled at this week’s Frankfurt Motor Show, the “Symbioz” is being marketed as “an extra-mobile, modular, multi-purpose room,” according to a press release referenced by Dezeen, where we first spotted the car. Symbioz’s sleek, all-steel frame and outsized windows take inspiration from the clean lines and broad glazed spans of modern residential architecture.

Its name is a hat-tip to Renault’s idea for the car: that it take up residence in your home like an appliance, and be used as a spare room when it’s not on the road. The design of the car nods at that idea, too: Four armchair-like seats clustered around a compact tray table as in a living room.

Renault’s director of design explained the design thinking there like this: "The car becomes a new mobile, multi-purpose living space for the whole family and can be used—open or closed—more fully, even when parked.”

The 120-square-foot show house in which the car was exhibited—built specifically for the Motor Show—is the work of Paris firm Marchi Architectes, and is kitted out with a lifting, rotating platform designed to best show off the Symbioz from every angle.

If you’re Bruce Wayne, or simply have cash to burn, Renault expects the all-electric concept car to become a real-world option by 2023.

Photo via Dezeen

Via: Dezeen