The main finding of this thesis is that sustainability does not have to be a compromise for luxury (or vice versa). In fact: it can be a starting point for experiencing luxury mobility in new ways that are more beneficial to the environment, the user and the brand - in this case Genesis, the luxury brand of Hyundai. Based on this, a vehicle interior design proposal was developed for a sustainability-oriented future Europe (2035).

Problem

The automotive industry is under increased pressure to become more sustainable and has responded to this with electrification and new mobility services. However, there has been less focus on the interior design, especially in the luxury segment. The underlying problem is that luxury and sustainability do not easily seem compatible, resulting in sustainability efforts that are mostly limited to the trim and decoration of the product. The aim was to go one level deeper (the interaction level) by envisioning a new and more responsible interpretation of luxury mobility.

Analysis

Using the ViP-method, the three pillars of the project - the brand, luxury and sustainability - were deconstructed. This led to the conclusion that traditional luxury is 'ego-focussed'. Conversely, sustainability means looking beyond the ego, namely balancing the needs between users and the environment. This could be achieved with a circular approach to products and reinforcing human-nature connections in interactions. To innovate on this interaction level was considered most interesting, since this was lacking in Genesis' current sustainability strategy. This could be a way to bridge the gap between the brand's ambitious 'New Luxury' slogan and their current interior designs.

Vision

With an overview of the status quo, now the future context could be explored. This was done by studying sustainability-oriented, societal and technological trends that shape future ('new') luxury. With this the Eco-Luxury travel trend was identified, that united luxury benefits (digital detox for mental wellbeing) with environmental benefits (awareness for more responsible behaviour). Based on this an interaction vision was created of exposing users to their environment, inspired by yachts with open-air lounges. This led to a moodboard and scenario that became the
foundation for the design.

Design

Next, several ideas were explored for the overall vehicle architecture that impacts the interaction. A GT proportion with off-road capability was selected to fit the interaction vision. Based on this a basic technical package was developed as well as several concepts. The selected concept reinterprets the 'majestic bonnet proportion' of typical luxury cars, with a yachting-inspired lounge deck. Here the user is invited to unwind and connect with his/her surroundings.

The lounge can accessed via an interior that is designed to fully immerse in the travel environment. The space looks airy thanks to the enlarged visibility and a calm and honest design, to prevent any distraction. Autonomous driving makes you focus fully on the road ahead, thanks to the absence of a dashboard with steering wheel. Instead the vehicle can be assisted when nessary with a joystick from the comfortable seating position of a hammock.

Evaluation

The design was optimised after extensive reviewing with professionals, experts and users. This led to a final design that was created in 3D. The design is presented with 2D renderings, as well as an interactive, Augmented Reality model.

The foundation of this graduation project lies in the future mobility sector, and will be performed in collaboration with Vanmoof Bicycles. Within this thesis the future context of mobility will be considered with respect to the changing societal landscape. The project will be concluded with a concept and prototype for Vanmoof. This physical prototype will be developed in order to gather further insights.

Technological advances have led to the development of autonomous driving. The SAE (Society of Automotive Engineers) defined five automation levels in order to differentiate the responsibilities between the driver and an automated driving system, ranging from “No Automation” (L0), to “Conditional Automation” (L3) and “Full Automation” (L5). The transition to full automation, however, brings new risks, such as mode confusion, overreliance, reduced situational awareness and misuse. Therefore, led by SWOV and together with many other parties, a 4-year project MEDIATOR is launched. The goal is to create a self-learning mediating system which guarantees safe, real-time transition of control between human driver and automated system depending on who is better fit for drive (Mediator, 2019).When the automation system reaches its operational limit in a given traffic situation, the automation issues a so-called take-over request (TOR), asking the driver to take back control of the vehicle (Gasser & Westhoff, 2012; Hoeger et al., 2011). The Human Machine Interface (HMI) plays a critical role on passing signal from the automated vehicle to driver when TOR happens. Therefore, it is of vital importance in avoiding misunderstandings, misuse, over-reliance, reduced situational awareness and mode confusion. However, nowadays, there are various different HMI design for autonomous vehicles in the market. Develop an unified HMI design principle to regulate the autonomous vehicle industry is also one of the tasks of MEDIATOR project.The graduation project is focusing on the HMI research and design when takeover happens ( see Figure 1). The key research questions of the graduation project are “when is it needed to communicate what kind of information and how to communicate the information with the driver during takeover?” So exploring the scenarios of TOR and then define the similarities and differences are one of the tasks. Simultaneously, from a research of Bazilinskyy and colleagues (2018), the means to communicate take-over requests are divided into three main categories that may be used in different level of urgency for take-over transition: visua l(written messages or signals shown on cluster, head unit or other in-vehicle displays), auditory (sonorous signals or voice messages), and vibrotactile (vibration of the steering wheel or seat). So it will be one of the challenges to explore which modalities to communicate TOR are the most effective means. In addition, driver’s situational awareness (SA can be defined simply as “knowing what is going on around us”) predicts the takeover performance. Drivers are better able to respond to hazards when they’re aware of the driving context. Therefore, enhancing the SA is also another challenge for the design of the takeover journey.In conclusion, the objective of the project is to design the HMI of autonomous vehicles in order to enhance situation awareness for a better take over transition/journey.

In 1886, humanity started a great effort to move away from horseback and build a carriage over which they have full control. A century-and-a-half later, we have succeeded to the degree that we are looking for a way to relax in our automobiles. The MEDIATOR project tackles the transitional period between conventional automobiles and fully autonomous vehicles. The challenge that arose with this transition is that the vehicle has to be designed for both driving and not driving. This graduation project tackles the very bit that most people will get to know: how to interact with the machine to divide the power of control? And how do we keep re-establishing that balance? The act of changing control between the human driver and the automation as a driver is to perform a Control Transfer Ritual. With little collected information, this project started with an intensive 45 days of gathering information about interaction between man and machine. The knowledge in fields of feedback, automation levels, input possibilities, legislation, and acceptance by all parties involved combined formed the basis upon which the Control Transfer Rituals were designed. The Control Transfer Rituals differ based on urgency of the situation, the target and original level of automation , and, in case of MEDIATOR, who instigated the transfer. This led to the development of a total of eleven distinctly different Control Transfer Rituals, and the exploration of Minimal Risk Manoeuvres. To validate the effectiveness and usability of these designed rituals, a simulator was developed. This simulator uses the C,MM,N prototype vehicle as a base and consists of a dashboard, with integrated controls, a virtual environment built in Unity, and a dummy Decision Logic, the computing unit of the MEDIATOR project. The prototype allows people to experience how travel will be in the not so distant future. Furthermore, the MEDIATOR project will be able to use it as a base for oncoming development, to ensure that your future travels will be ever more comfortable and safe.

Electroluminescence (EL) is a phenomenon of light emission from phosphor material when it is exposed to a strong electric field. In practice, EL lamps can be fabricated easily with screen printing method - depositing layers of inks on top of each other, with customized patterns possible. EL can be seamlessly embedded on various substrate materials, generating soft and homogeneous light. This project is cooperated with Toyota Motor Europe to explore how EL material can be applied in the automotive domain.

The proposed concept is targeting for vehicle to pedestrian communication in crosswalking scenarios, especially with regard to highly autonomous cars. The envisioned interaction process is divided into five stages: auto-driving mode, pedestrian detection, deceleration, transition and acceleration, by means of the animated lighting from the triangle patterns. Its key value lies in that pedestrians can cross the street with more confirmation and certainty instead of guessing driver intentions. In addition, it provides insights about how to shape the interaction between pedestrian and automated cars in the near future as an early exploration.

Advances in technology during the last decade have made piloted vehicles a reality. With an increasing level of vehicle automation, the role of the driver changes from controlling and observing the driving environment into becoming a passenger. However, with the introduction of piloted driving, the user has to trust his life to a machine. Therefore, one of the most important factors in the human-car relationship will be trust that the occupant places in the piloted vehicle (Waytz, Heafner, & Epley, 2014). In fact, the feeling of trust will have a major impact on the acceptance of piloted driving and is an important factor in the judgment of autonomous systems (Garcia, Kreutzer, Badillo-Urquiola, & Mouloua, 2015). However, recent scientific surveys indicated that people are interested in the new technology, but hesitate to trust piloted driving vehicles (Schmidt, 2016, Schoettle & Sivak, 2014, Kyriakidis, Happee, & Winter, 2015). In order to define the future domain and context for this thesis, the target year is based on different expert forecasts on the development of autonomous driving. According to literature, it can be concluded that due to developments in technology, fully autonomous driving will be market-ready between 2025-2030 (ERTRAC, 2015; Rupp & King, 2010). Due to the fact that the next generation vehicles for 2020-2023 are currently under development, the selected target year for this thesis is 2030 in order to create a visionary input for the subsequent fully autonomous vehicle generation of Audi. The theoretical analysis about fully piloted driving and the related problem of trust in combination with the developed future context scenario of 2030, which will be discussed later in this thesis, led to the following mission statement: “Design of an AI Companion that evokes the feeling of trust by creating a relationship that is characterised by authenticity and control” Based on the mission statement, the interaction analogy of “using a compass for guidance in unknown territory” and the derived product qualities of “vivid”, “reassuring”, “familiar” and “magical”, the AI Companion was developed. The AI Companion is an innovative haptic interface concept for a fully piloted vehicle without a steering wheel and pedals with the objective to build trust between the vehicle and the occupants. By simply laying on hands, the AI Companion generates a magical, haptic movement that allows the user to feel the upcoming driving manoeuvres of the piloted vehicle. By actively moving the AI Companion the user has the ability to communicate with the vehicle and therefore shapes its driving dynamics. Through the interaction with the user, the AI Companion creates an individual piloted driving profile based on the needs of each occupant. In order to make the functions perceptible and to test if the AI Companion concept fulfils the desired product qualities in order to evoke the feeling of trust, a functional design prototype was build. To evaluate the concept, a user test with 47 participants was carried out. The user test revealed that the developed prototype satisfies the desired product qualities to a large extent. That in turn forms the basis for a trustful relationship between the user and the product. Therefore, it can be stated that the AI Companion has a positive influence on the feeling of trust in the context of a fully piloted vehicle.