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Volvo's Crazy-Looking Vera: A Driverless--and Passengerless--Vehicle for Transporting Goods
Breaking out of the incumbent form factor
By Rain Noe - Sep 13, 2018
We're used to seeing autonomous car concepts, and even autonomous trucks. But Volvo is the first to break free from the incumbency of the form factors with Vera, their forthcoming driverless vehicle that looks pretty radically different from what came before:
"Vera is an autonomous, electric vehicle that can operate with significantly less exhaust emissions and low noise levels. It is controlled and monitored via a cloud-based service, and has the potential to make transportation safer, cleaner and more efficient."
The idea is that a fleet of these would "optimise transport in highly-repetitive, short distance flows with large volumes of goods, such as ports, factory areas and logistical mega centres, where it offers better delivery precision and flexibility."
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Enter a caption (optional)So for now, at least, it appears this is not intended to replace long-haul truckers. But when that step is eventually taken, whether by Volvo, Tesla or another company, there are going to be a lot of people out of work. Who should address that issue? Volvo? The government? The people that are going to be out of work themselves?
Rain Noe
Rain Noe is a writer and industrial designer based in New York City.
Continued Reading
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By Core Jr - Sep 11, 2018
The Middlecott Sketchbattle Experiment Brought Live Transportation Sketching Excitement to San Francisco
Also, gear up for the next Sketchbattle happening this Oct 31!
The Middlecott Sketchbattle Experiment (MSBE) is an automotive design sketching competition and party, where today's and tomorrow's motor industry elite battle for recognition as the Middlecott Sketchbattle Champion. The recent San Francisco edition of the Sketchbattle consisted of two rounds of design sketching, lasting around 30-45 minutes each. Following the
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By Rain Noe - Sep 11, 2018
Cars are Now So Well Built, Manufacturers Pipe In Fake Engine Sounds (Listen Here)
Shouldn't we have downloadable vroom-tones, like ringtones?
With electric cars, the darn things are so quiet that artificial noises must be piped into the cabins; as we learned with the I-Pace, Jaguar's designers even took the extreme step of hiring a Hollywood sound engineer to tune the X-Wing-Fighter-like noise that car emits. Even internal combustion engine cars
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By Rain Noe - Sep 10, 2018
Can Volvo's 360c Electric, Autonomous Concept Car Replace First-Class Air Travel?
A private cabin with door-to-door service doesn't sound too bad
Most electric concept cars address environmental and sustainability issues. Autonomous concept cars speak of a future where transportation is a service. And with their new 360c electric, autonomous concept car, Volvo goes a bit further to ask: What impact will such cars have on us as individuals? Might they influence
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By Rain Noe - Sep 05, 2018
Italdesign's Reimagined Nissan GT-R May See Limited Production
The Skyline's the limit
To celebrate their 50th anniversary, storied styling house Italdesign took Nissan's hot-rocket GT-R Nismo--essentially a street-legal racecar--and reimagined it as the GT-R50. Italdesign's goal was to "[re-interpret] it with a European-style sensibility combining Japanese performance and Italian craftsmanship," and what they've come up is pretty out of this world:
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