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A Drive Into The Future

Business Today

October 21, 2018

Disruptions such as electrification, autonomous driving andconnected technologies will pave the way for luxury cars that will be more futuristic and cutting-edge than ever.

- Sumant Banerji

Imagine a car that offers you a comfortable flatbed to sleep, is silent as a church and unobtrusive as it doesn’t need a driver. Top it off with unmatched versatility that can transform the cabin into a living room, a theatre or business centre at the press of a button replete with a change of upholstery, lighting and furniture. A highly robotised machine that can munch miles by the hour at hyper speeds without much fuss, manoeuvre twisty roads or traffic jams on its own and offers you an invisible but friendly and efficient robot that doubles up as a chauffeur and assistant much like Jarvis of the Iron Man series. All that, without hurting the environment. That in a nutshell is the future of the luxury car.

The three-pronged disruption – electrification, driverless cars and connectivity that has engulfed the global automotive industry – is having its say on the luxury side of the business as well. Within a decade from now, cars meant for billionaires would be starkly different from today. Unlike the other segments, though, the evolution is likely to be more coherent and the cars that emerge from the shadows, more exciting. Lack of any restriction on a sticker price does have its merits.

MORE SPACE, LESS NOISE

Replacing the conventional internal combustion engine that has done its duty for over a century now, by a simplistic electric motor and battery pack would herald a new era of comfort and convenience. With the engine gone, the snout of the car can now be shorter, the wheels more spread out to the extreme corners of the vehicle enhancing the space inside. For the Bentleys and Rolls-Royces of the world that today house monstrous 8 to 12 cylinder engine blocks under the hood, this change would be dramatic. The cars in future would have much more space than before without any change in dimensions per se.