As part of this year's L.A. Auto Show, the challenge went out to automobile companies and designers to create Robocar 2057 -- an imaginative leap toward the future which we think the designers made with aplomb.
Many of the ideas are ingenious, creating forms that are distinctly un-car-like. The Mazda entry, for instance, looks a lot more like a crumpled piece of paper than a set of wheels. Some of the designs make the assumption that gas will not be the primary fuel. The Toyota entry goes one step further: the vehicle extracts pollutants from the air and uses them as fuel. That would be a neat trick.
The chances of that happening? Probably as great as gas returning to $1 a gallon at the pump. On the other hand, it would be sad if the cars of the future still looked like the Ford Taurus.
written on Tuesday Nov 13, 2007
back to the future.
