Jaguar is envisioning a future that’s focused on self-driving and on-demand shared mobility with its new Future-Type concept car. The vehicle boasts fully autonomous or assisted manual driving options, a narrow body design aimed at fitting into tight quarters in dense cities – and a removable steering wheel named ‘Sayer’ that’s sort of like an automotive Pokémon pal.
The Future-Type’s Sayer steering wheel is removable, and is designed to go with the driver wherever they go. It’s a music player, a smart assistant, a mobile device and, well, a steering wheel all in one. You can talk to Sayer using voice commands, asking it to set appointments, summon your vehicle, control your smart home and more.
Meanwhile, the Future-Type itself will be able to work with co-operative car sharing networks, allowing others to summon it and take it for trips, providing its owner opts in to that kind of sharing. Sayer of course will manage its deployment based on your availability and plans. Plus, if you ever want to take over and actually drive (something Jaguar owners are likely big on) then the wheel can be used to steer the vehicle, too.
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Weirdly, in this vision of the automotive future, the only aspect of the car you might actually fully own is the steering wheel itself – Jaguar envisions this being the primary link between customers and shared transportation services, so that Sayer works interchangeably with a network of linked, distributed use Future-Type cars.
As with any concept, this is just one vision of what the future may hold – and a far out one at that. Let me just say, though, that a virtual buddy built into a modular, go-anywhere steering wheel/mobile device sounds like a great setup for a sci-fi novella.