Take every petrol car sold today and show it to a mechanic working on a Ford Model T 100 years ago, and there’s a good chance they’ll know roughly how it works. An internal combustion engine spins the wheels at the front, carrying a driver behind the wheel, some passengers and luggage.
The advent of electric cars is changing everything. The shape of the car will no longer be so strictly determined by bulky engines, exhaust control or drive shafts. At the same time, digital technology promises to replace everything from rear-view mirrors to the human driver. The automotive industry has never had to deal with so many changes at once.
All of these changes will culminate in the next few years, says Adrian van Hoydonck, BMW Group’s head of design. The main concerns of car manufacturers will be electricity and the integration of rapidly evolving digital technologies – while improving environmental sustainability. “It’s going to be a rediscovery,” he said.
Here are some of the most remarkable changes we can expect to see.
‘skateboard’
Chassis of the General Motors Hummer EV in Lansing, Michigan. Photo: Bill Pugliano / Getty Images
The lack of an internal combustion engine has already taken its toll. Look at the front of the Tesla and one thing becomes clear: no grille is needed to provide air to the engine.
Rival manufacturers (in catch-up mode, Tesla, the world’s most valuable carmaker) are using the newly discovered freedom of design to provide models such as the Hyundai Ioniq 5 and Honda e, which are suitable for smaller but stronger lights in a package offering retro futurism that may have been featured in a 1980s science fiction film.
Hyundai Ioniq 5 won the World Car of the Year award for 2022. Photo: Andrew Kelly / Reuters
But the changes will go beyond the superficial style. Electric cars are built with a “skateboard” design, with a flat layer of batteries and wheels and motors at both ends. Electric motors are also smaller than bulky internal combustion engines, which means there is no need for a large cover in front of the driver.
The American startup Canoo is one of the most remarkable examples of this. Its “lifestyle vehicle”, which may be postponed until early next year due to supply chain problems, will have a particularly flat front end, which will give it a square shape unlike most modern cars.
EV “skateboard” containing batteries and motors in an almost flat configuration. Photo: Hyundai / Canoo
However, aerodynamic considerations still prevail to some extent. Initially, the UK’s starting van Arrival planned a vertical windscreen, but eventually opted for a more traditional design as air resistance reduced the car’s range.
More interior space
The Hyundai Seven concept. Photo: David Swanson / EPA
Skateboards mean that electric cars are usually a few inches taller, and many car manufacturers have started with bulky sports cars (SUVs) to fit more batteries. But there is still more room for passengers.
For cars with internal combustion engines, “mechanics take up a huge amount of space in the overall footprint,” says Mark Adams, design director for Vauxhall-Opel. What this EV space is for, then, “really depends on the individual vehicle and what you’re trying to do as a brand.”
Citroën, one of Vauxhall’s stable partners in the Stellantis conglomerate, has already shown one possibility: the Ami is a tiny, trouble-free two-seater city car. It will start later this summer in the UK for less than £ 8,000.
Citroën’s electric Ami. Photo: Ed Alcock / Guardian
In France, Ami can be driven by anyone over the age of 14 without the need for a driving license.
Adams believes that the electric revolution can finally stop the transition to larger SUVs. “The days of growing cars are long gone,” he said. We no longer need to have cars with a huge footprint.
Fewer car parts
BMW Vision Circular on display in Munich in September 2021. Photo: Sascha Steinbach / EPA
Zero emissions are not the only major change in the way cars look and feel. Reducing end-of-life waste is increasingly seen as crucial for carmakers, which means using fewer parts with less complex material mixtures where possible.
For example, the front grille of a car can contain 10 to 15 parts, so giving it up reduces the complication when it comes to fixing or recycling. BMW’s Vision Circular showed how a car can be made from just seven materials – all recyclable. Achieving this on a large scale, however, will be another matter.
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Forget about the steering wheel
The most obvious absence in future cars will eventually be the steering wheel. Driverless cars already travel millions of miles on the road, and it seems inevitable that mostly or completely autonomous cars (known as level 4 and level 5 in industrial parlance) will eventually hit the market.
“If you then switch it to fully autonomous, you don’t have to stay in the same position,” says Adams of Vauxhall. “We’re all looking at this space.”
Changing “one big thing changes 100 smaller things,” he added. Less driving means less need for easily accessible controls, so cars will replace the plane’s cockpit, full of buttons and switches, for a cleaner look, which is more for leisure.
In general, digitalization will have an even greater effect on car design than even electrification, says van Hoydonk.
Living room on wheels
Hyundai’s chief designer, SangYup Lee, sat in the Seven Concept at Automobility LA in California in November 2021. Photo: David Swanson / EPA
Canoo calls its US-centric model an “attic on wheels”, while Korean carmaker Hyundai’s Seven concept vehicle has swivel sunbeds and banquet seats, which it describes as a “living space on wheels”. Clearly, some cars will be treated more like home extensions that move, as drivers are free to do other things.
All this free time on the go can give people more time for other activities. Cinema-style projectors or virtual reality entertainment are two options that are being developed. Automotive consulting and major technology companies from Apple and Alphabet to Spotify and WeChat believe that the car will be the next place where they can sell a huge range of services such as movies, games and music.
Eventually, the interior can be moved from the “living room” to the “bedroom”, although the placement of beds instead of car seats creates difficult safety problems. Nevertheless, the idea of going to bed at home and waking up at work or even in another country is no longer a Jetsons-style dream.
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