What will Driverless Cars Look Like?

While I’m generally most interested in the policy and planning considerations of driverless cars, I had to dedicate a blog post to this – it is probably one of the more fun things to imagine.  Driverless cars, literally, call into question every aspect of today’s automobile design. Assuming that regulations requiring steering wheels and brakes go away, these are the kinds of design changes I’ve been hearing about:

• Seats facing each other, or at least seats that swivel from front-facing to rear-facing. People no longer need to face the front of the car;
• Large windows for taking in the scenery – probably in different locations than they are now;
• Lighter cars since they are so much safer and no longer need to be built for accident prevention
• Interactive consoles (e.g., touch screens) with television, music, internet, charging station, etc. (these already exist in cars like the Tesla)
• Smaller cars that are designed for transporting just one or two people at a time

While not mentioned in any articles, I would love to see exercise equipment in these vehicles.  Why not make the best use of our traveling time with a mobile gym?!