The Nissan Vmotion 2.0 isn’t a typical concept car, full of amazing but ultimately meaningless specs and crazy power numbers. Instead, it’s all about design. This is what Nissan says will be the design direction for its next generation of sedans, and it looks straight out of Minority Report or I, Robot.
Design is what separates cars from one another, and gives an unspoken voice to the brand. The Ford Mustang is the Mustang because of the design, not because of what’s under the hood (though that helps) — and even if someone doesn’t particularly care about car design or what their car looks like, car design nonetheless carries significant importance. Lots of cars will get from point A to point B, but the car you drive tells the world something about you.
Even as autonomous cars make the driving experience a little less important, design will continue to be important — maybe even more so — and what’s under the hood could start to matter less.
The lighting around the Nissan emblem on the front grille and the rear diffuser glows when the car is in autonomous mode, signaling to other drivers and pedestrians that the computer is in control. It’s something we’ve seen before as carmakers try to figure out how self-driving cars will communicate with the outside world and, in particular, reassure pedestrians that the car sees them and they won’t be run over.