An interior proposal for an future shared autonomous car within urban cities

Abstract

As you well know we are entering a new era. An era in which more and more things are becoming smart including the cars that we see around us. This technology will soon bring us new services like car- and ridesharing with autonomous capabilities. Big brands like Renault and Audi expect self-driving cars on the road around 2022. Nevertheless, a lot of questions remain unanswered. One of these questions is the adaptation of the interior to self-driving technology. What will we do, when we do not have to drive anymore? Every OEM has a different answer to it and a study was done in this project that shows that we will spend our time doing activities like sleeping, eating, working, socializing, using in-car entertainment or being private while daily commuting in this private ride-sharing car with friends or family members.

The second question that probably pops-up in your mind right now is how this interior will enable this. The solution provided in this thesis exists out of a mechanical rail system that enables different seating layouts which ensures that all occupants (in most cases this will be two) can enjoy the activities that they do during commuting to the utmost. Imagine that you want to have some private time while your friend is sleeping. He wants his personal space in the rear and does not want to be seen by you while sleeping. Besides that, he desires to feel safe and wrapped around by the interior. All this is possible thanks to the simplistic mechanism that resulted after a lot of iteration with the client.

The third question relates to the rituals that people have during these activities. Before sleeping people tend to read a book or watch something on the tablet and slowly fade away. These kinds of rituals show that the interior should provide solutions like a foldable table and space in which they can store their small or big luggage, when not in use. A creative session resulted in a cabin package which was used as a reference during the interior design. This session looked at the required stuff that people take with them during commuting which creates an atmosphere that feels like a second living room.

The design of the interior has function over form. Every part is designed with a specific scenario in mind while the aesthetic laws of automotive design were used, like indexing and coherent shapes. The design inspiration came from the interior philosophy of BMW, a visual comparison of current living rooms and a collage, in which the aim was to bring a design which has a nice harmony between simplicity and complexity with a balance of geometric and organic shapes. I present to you a proposal interior for a ride-sharing autonomous car for urban cities around 2022.