It’s clear from Honda’s booth at International CES2017 that this mainstream automaker sees that its target market is shifting from vehicles to mobility. Jared Hall, Advanced Design Group Leader of Honda, explains how the NeuV concept car targets where the market is going.
As a self-professed car-guy, he feels energized by the fresh approach to design where mobility is the focus. With its compact size and unique doors, it is clearly designed with the urban, Millennial generation in mind. An example of a mobility feature is the slot for an electric skateboard that serves as a last-mile extension to navigate narrow urban pathways. The NeuV concept integrates car-sharing capability, so the owner can rent her car, instead of having it sit idle.
More than mobility, NeuV is about experience; an experience that centers around an intelligent agent, HANA; Honda Automated Network Assistant. Honda sees this as personal agent that is more than artificial intelligence (AI), but as an “emotion engine” that predicts the needs of the passenger.
An implication is that the driver can be the passenger, thanks to the Level 4 autonomy integrated into the car. Honda wasn’t quite ready to dump the steering wheel with this concept, so the driver still has the option to drive. Having said that, when we interviewed Hall, he was already 3 months into his next concept; which maybe we will have a chance to see at next week’s CES2018.
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