Smart Starts Playing With Autonomous Tech

Smart is looking to revolutionize how people get around big urban centers. I mean, it’s looking to revolutionize city center transportation further. The Vision EQ ForTwo concept shows how the brand plans to do that.

Basically, it’s a fully-autonomous, fully-electric two-seater for hire. You just whip out your phone, order a car, and it comes to you. Through Smart’s Car2Go car sharing service, right now you have to walk to where an available car is parked.

Swarm intelligence will help each fleet of these cars adapt to the craziness of city life. That leaves the two passengers to sit back inside and do whatever they want.

According to Smart, you can project images onto the insides of the side windows, thanks to a revolutionary film. The same stuff is on the exterior doors, which can show ads, the weather, or whatever. A screen over the front fascia displays messages, like if the car is occupied or available.

The craziest part is that as a single passenger, you can choose to share the car with a stranger. Profiles for potential passengers display on the dashboard screen, and you accept or reject people. Then, when the person gets in the car, your shared interests show up on the screen, so you have conversation starters.

With this concept, you can expect Smart to go to market with a production version of the Vision EQ ForTwo within the next three years.