Autonomous Car Concept

We are spending a lot of time traveling with cars, busses, trains and more. In the future autonomous cars will allow us to use this time of traveling for either working, entertainment, social life and other life-enriching activities. As cars where always a symbol of freedom and younger people tend to care less about car ownership, we asked ourself :

How can young people explore their own or a foreign city to enjoy new experiences and share them with friends? We think young people often tend to explore things and highly enjoy to share them. Doesn’t matter if they are long time residents of a city or new in this area.
This brought us to “coast.“ a social driven service for young people, that like to do joint activities in their own city or on vacation. It allows users to book an autonomous car and experience a specific adventure.

To allocate a broad range of activities we want to connect the producers of autonomous cars with a spectrum of selected services. This creates unique car editions that are tailored for the needs of different user groups. Combined with a cross-industry-concept, we can integrate multiple companies in each model to supply different needs.

The presented VW Budd-e GoPro Edition unites GoPro as the main gear supplier with Playstation as entertainment system and Red Bull or Coca-Cola as beverage supplier. In this manner car producers and third parties can generate a comprehensive social-service for their target group of which everyone benefits.

In our case the GoPro Edition is tailored for a surfing adventure. The car is equipped with surf boards, wet-suits, important tools for smaller maintenance of the boards. To capture the unique adventure the user has the ability to film this trip with a selection of GoPro’s and the special mounts. A fully autonomous flying drone could also capture beautiful material from above.

In an ideal future scenario coast. could suggest you activities based on your activities in social networks. The user could then easily add friends to his or her journey. This could work so seamless that the user doesn’t even have to use his phone, but instead accepts a suggestion with the Apple Watch.

Touch Table

A essential part of the experience inside the car is a big touch-table located in the center of a rounded bench. During our research we realized that HUD’s are good to display information, but very hard to interact with. The touch-table is the solution to this problem as it is easy to access by everyone in the car with free floating windows. The rounded bench also creates a socializing feel inside the car as people can face each other while talking.

The table itself is a central hub to get information and interact with the cars specific features. During the trip to the location surfer-newbies could watch introduction videos to get started. Experienced surfers can select from a variety of tips collaborated by professional surfers to further learn tricks and challenging technics.

The table also opens up a connection with the users phone. Anyone can put their phone on the table to automatically pair it. This allows users to easily show the others photos or videos of their last city trip. Just swipe up to display them in the cars big HUD’s.

On the way back all GoPro’s automatically sync the videos with the car. Automated image recognition would help to highlight the best photos and clips and create a short best-of-movie. The users are also able to browse the whole material to create their movie with custom texts, music and effects. The table allows them to collaboratively browse their moments and share them online.

Prospects / Resume

As already mentioned a characteristic of coast. is the cross-industry-concept. Possible partners next to GoPro could be Eventbrite, Groupon or CinemaxX.
A Eventbrite-Edition could be extra spacious, with a small bar inside the car and a sound system. You could experience a whole new type of events.
A Groupon-Edition, equipped with promotional material under special conditions, to enjoy deals together. Let it be a spontaneous climbing afternoon or a „quick-deal“ for a back-massage.
Furthermore a CinemaxX-Edition could be equipped with a big cinema like screen, snacks and beverages to open up new ways to experience new cinema releases even before you reach the cinema.

This project was created during a university course lead by Prof. Matthias Krohn, in cooperation with the Interaction Design Team at Volkswagen AG. The project isn’t connected in any way with GoPro, Playstation, Red Bull, Coca-Cola, Eventbrite, Groupon or CinemaxX.