NextWorld (2008) s01e03 Episode Script
Future Cars
NARRATOR : ln the future, you will commute to work at supersonic speeds.
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cruise around town in a mahogany sports car, and drive machines that will take you to new depths.
Technology is pushing from every direction.
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getting faster with each passing second.
Prepare yourself.
The future is closer than you think.
KAKU : The car hasn't really changed much in the past 80 years.
lt's basically a box on wheels.
In the future, we're gonna see a dramatic, revolutionary convergence of advanced technologies -- nanotechnology, artificial intelligence, microsensor technology -- the application of space-age and digital technology, which will shake everything up concerning our car.
NARRATOR : Those revolutionary innovations will mean that cars will someday morph to suit our ever-changing needs.
Determining the shape of things to come begins with a simple question.
just what is a car, anyway? Often referred to as the ''automobile.
'' ''Automobile'' -- like self-moving.
With that definition, an elevator is auto-mobile.
l think a much better word, a much more emotional one, is the word ''cars.
'' lf an automobile is what you use, a car is what you are.
[ Engine revs .]
NARRATOR : lf cars are who we are, then cars have defined us thus far as.
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A box.
Cars kind of all look the same.
They're all boxes.
To make sure that every one of those cars is perfect, you mill them out of huge blocks of steel and iron.
And you make sure that they're put in machines that only put them together in an extremely, extremely precise manner.
Design is really here to be a mediator between you and your world.
But if people's expectations are things should look exactly like they did yesterday, then that's what they're gonna look like.
NARRATOR : And with every new age comes new expectations.
The question is, how will those new expectations reshape our automotive future? Let me introduce you to Gina.
NARRATOR : This is a car we'd all like to meet.
lt's an aluminum-space-frame chassis that gives it these dimensions and these proportions of what really is a classic roadster.
NARRATOR : Aerodynamic, powerful, exotic, sleek -- all the elements of a classic roadster.
But how is this the car of the future? Gina's got something very special under the hood.
Instead of a car with a steel body or a carbon-fiber body, we made this entire car out of a Gina skin, which is very stretchy, can be put over all kinds of structure.
And, in fact, this structure right here is the substructure, which protects you in a crash.
And the skin takes a normal sports car and really makes it a sports car of the future.
So if we want to wake Gina up, l guess the first thing we have to do is ask Gina to open her eyes and wake up a bit, because that's really where the personality of a car comes through.
Hello? There we go.
Can we get a little bit of light out of you? There we go.
The light spills through underneath and shows you the structure and also let it have a little bit of an attitude.
NARRATOR : Inspired by stretching a stocking over a wire clothes hanger, Chris Bangle has taken the concept of a beautiful car and expanded it beyond what most people can imagine.
Gina itself isn't just about stretching cloth.
lt's about stretching your mind into a new idea framework to let you see the materials differently.
lf today Ineed to take a lot of stuff to the dump and so Ineed a lot of space in the back of the car, the car has to change to adapt to that.
But tomorrow, l happen to be going with my wife to a party and l would like the car to look as elegant as we are dressed, can't the car change a bit more into that shape? NARRATOR : Gina will usher in the age of morphing mobility.
l magine a car that changes shape to suit your every need.
BANGLE: Well, if cars really are an avatar for you, they reflect you on the outside to the rest of the world, then it only makes sense that as we change and evolve in how we are as people in this world and relate to one another, the cars have to change with us.
NARRATOR : Gina may be one of a kind, but with the introduction of the Gina concept, car design may never return to its original shape ever again.
The idea that every generation needs to find cars for themselves is quite clear, in the historical sense.
And if you look forward in the future, then the kind of demands that young people put on our generation are really high.
And they expect a different world than the one that we're living in right now.
That's where l think car design has to change to match those expectations.
NARRATOR : And the morphing that Gina can do may be only the beginning, because forward-thinking scientists and designers are planning for a future in which cars can reshape themselves at the molecular level through the emerging science of nanotechnology.
The magic of nanotechnology means that in the future we may be able to grow things atom for atom.
lf you can control the migration of individual atoms, you can literally grow cars in your backyard.
NARRATOR : By manipulating individual atoms and molecules, nanotechnologists will make cars that are vastly stronger, lighter, and infinitely more flexible -- cars like the nanospider.
Volkswagen designers think that one day they'll be able to program extremely tiny machines, none of them more than a half a millimeter in diameter, to assemble themselves into a car.
FAULWETTER : These robots are creating a shape -- a car.
Like, you're driving in a car, and it consists out of a society of little nanorobots.
NARRATOR : The connections between the nanobots could be changed on the fly, letting the car shift its shape as needed.
lt's like a morphing car.
So the vehicle's shape would begin to change based on the dynamics of the wind, based on the speed that we want to go, based on whether we're going up a hill or down a hill.
And this is what we want to be able to do, much like a bird in flight being able to change its shape.
So, in other words, instead of having a car that has a singular shape, the car shape can change.
NARRATOR : Using tiny sensors, the nanodevices could sense impending collisions and strengthen or weaken their connections accordingly, creating active crumple zones.
And when the car has outlived its usefulness -- no problem.
lt's like a new way of recycling things.
lt's not like creating a car and after time, when you don't need it anymore, then crush it or melt it.
You can use the same kind of material to create a different shape for different needs.
NARRATOR : Future cars will be able to redesign themselves on the fly.
But when the rubber meets the road, just how fast will they go? lf you haven't seen the future, you haven't driven fast enough.
Future roads may have speed limits.
But future cars won't.
That's because engineers are retooling cars from the inside out, building a new generation of speed demons that will leave even today's fastest cars in the dust.
lf you haven't seen the future, you haven't driven fast enough.
NARRATOR : This is the Koenigsegg, the fastest street-legal car on the planet.
That's 2 45 miles per hour of handmade Swedish engineering brought to you by one visionary Swedish engineer -- Christian von Koenigsegg.
We build supercars for the future.
NARRATOR : The secret of the Koenigsegg -- a g00-horsepower twin supercharged engine wrapped in an ultralight carbon-fiber frame.
That's what makes it go fast.
But speed isn't only about raw power.
KOEN lGSEGG : Fast is not only top speed.
Fast is about how the car operates as a total, meaning braking, acceleration, cornering, how everything interacts fast to make the package go fast around a circle or on a bad road or in a straight line in top speed all at the same time.
That's fast.
[ Engine revs .]
NARRATOR : With that in mind, Christian von Koenigsegg has hand-tooled every inch of the car to be as responsive as if it were part of your own body.
And what a body it is.
lt makes you feel like Superman.
lt gives me feedback.
lt feels like l put my feet on the road and my hands on the wheels and on the brake disks, basically.
l am connected.
NARRATOR : Feeling that connected doesn't come cheap.
The latest Koenigsegg sells for slightly over $ 1 million, and the wait list is about two years.
But if you can wait a little longer, future models of the Koenigsegg will pretty much tie the car's controls right into your nervous system.
KOEN lGSEGG : Force-feedback systems will further improve the tactile feeling and the connectivity to a car to make it more like an exoskeleton.
There will be technology that monitors your eyes to see what they're looking at and molding seats to your body so you're always comfortable.
Instead of having gears, it will be able to modulate torque and RPM with hand controls so you're always balancing the tip of the maximum power.
NARRATOR : The Koenigsegg will be able to handle anything the road can throw at it at blistering speeds.
But if you really want to see the future of speed, you'll have to get off the roads altogether, because ''street legal'' is only part of the story.
In California's Mojave Desert, engineers and racers are busy building a future in which commutes will be measured in seconds, not hours.
A future in which cars break the sound barrier regularly.
This is the North American Eagle, and it's poised to become the fastest car on the face of the Earth.
lt's a jet fighter on wheels -- literally.
SHADLE: We took this F-1 04 Starfighter, which is a Mach 2 fighter, and we clipped its wings.
We actually removed the wings, removed the horizontal stabilizer, spent years rebuilding everything.
'Cause you can't just go out and buy these things.
And we built this thing on a suspension so that we can actually drive it like a car.
NARRATOR : Two months away from being scrapped to make beer cans, it was a death-defying act to get the Eagle up to speed.
But it seems the Eagle was destined to break the world land speed record of 7 63 miles per hour.
SHADLE: That was the original taiInumber of this aircraft.
7 63 miles an hour represents the world land speed record.
And this being 7 63, we figured there's probably some divine intervention there.
NARRATOR : In fact, Ed believes he can go well beyond 800 miles per hour in his supersonic car.
At speeds like that, ordinary rubber tires would melt like butter, and most metals would buckle.
So Ed and his team reinvented the wheel.
SHADLE: lt's a special aerospace grade of aluminum.
'Cause when you spin these things up to like 1 5, 000 RPMs, they practically turn into potato chips, the way they warp.
So the design had to be really thought through.
l mean, who else has built wheels out there that are capable of turning at g00 miles an hour? l think we're about the first ones.
NARRATOR : And melting wheels aren't the only concern.
Traveling at supersonic speeds involves breaking the sound barrier, and this creates a shock wave.
[ Sonic boom .]
A shock wave in the air is nothing to worry about.
But a shock wave on the ground.
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lt creates lift, and if you're not careful, next thing you know, you're flying this airplane instead of driving this airplane.
lt's a very delicate dance all the way down the track.
NARRATOR : But the biggest technical challenge of supersonic ground travel isn't going fast.
lt's stopping.
Since ordinary brakes would be shredded at these speeds, Ed's team developed a one-of-a-kind set of magnetic brakes made up of two large metal plates in the wheel assembly, each aligned with 2 7 rare-earth permanent magnets.
Hydraulic systems push the magnetic brake plates together creating eddy currents in the aluminum and generating enough resistance to stop a jet fighter in mid-flight.
And just like space-program technologies have become part of our everyday lives, Ed Shadle believes the inauguration of the rocket car will one day supercharge your daily commute.
SHADLE: One of the futures of the automobile that could be answered through a project like this is getting people to work.
Now, if you look at the new HOT lanes that they just opened up between Tacoma and Seattle, you have to pay to go into the left lane so you can scurry along faster than everyone else.
What if that was a track that you move your vehicle onto and it's levitated through our magnetic processes that we've developed here and they're scooted along at 7 00, 800, g00 miles an hour and they get to Seattle in a blink? Wouldn't that be great? That's the kind of future that can come from the technologies that we develop in projects like this.
NARRATOR : Future cars will go really fast.
Does that mean future car wrecks will be really bad? Not necessarily.
In the future, crashes will be a thing of the past.
NARRATOR : No more crashes -- ever? That's a long way from where we are today.
[ Tires screech .]
There's more than 1 .
2 million people getting killed in road-traffic accidents each year.
And that's just the tip of the iceberg.
NARRATOR : In fact, traffic accidents are, globally, the leading cause of death among young people age 1 0 to 2 4 years old.
lt's not a problem.
lt's epidemic.
NARRATOR : The cure for the epidemic is being developed in the labs of Volvo.
lt was here that the three-point seat belt was created.
And it's here that new concepts for a crash-proof future are being hatched.
We take safety very seriously.
NARRATOR : Their newest model is designed to be virtually death-proof.
Creating a car like that starts with analyzing the real-world physics of collisions.
Meet M r.
And M rs.
Benson.
Clive, who's doing the driving today, has been working hard all week.
Meet Lars and Anna, a newlywed couple.
While the couple are arguing about what route to take, the driver takes a moment to look down at the map, not realizing that he's starting to drift into the opposite lane.
In the other car, Clive is listening to his family, drifting off in his mind, not realizing the car coming straight towards him.
NARRATOR : By playing out thousands of realistic scenarios, engineers are able to constantly refine airbag responsiveness, frame design, and other components of the death-proof car.
BROBERG : Looking up from the map, the couple realize that they're in the wrong lane.
At the same moment, Clive looks up and he starts to apply the brakes.
But it's too late.
NARRATOR : These scenarios have helped Volvo build ultra-safe cars.
But they're not resting on their laurels.
Their vision -- a future where crashing is not just survivable.
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but impossible.
This is my car, and l really like it.
In the crash-free future, thanks to auto-brake systems, l don't have to worry about it getting damaged.
NARRATOR : To make a car that won't let itself crash, you have to give it senses.
We gave this car eyes.
Here, we have a laser radar which transmits laser beams in front of the car.
And here's a receiver.
Based on this information, we can calculate the closing velocity to objects in front of the car.
NARRATOR : And you have to give the car reflexes.
lf you're about to crash, your car will take the wheel.
BROBERG : lf a collision is imminent and the driver does not take appropriate action, we can automatically brake the car and completely avoid the collision.
NARRATOR : Using its radar eyes to spot dangers and auto-braking and auto-steering to avoid them, this is one car that won't crash even if you want it to.
But the real goal is to create a car that works with you to avoid collisions.
So we can monitor what's outside the car.
We can also monitor how the car is being used.
This kind of research can help us in the future to actually get inside the driver's head.
NARRATOR : Using software which monitors and tracks your eye movements, head position, and reaction time.
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they're building a future car that will compensate for your bad driving habits.
lt will know when you're distracted, when you're overreacting, when you're nervous, and when you're angry.
lt will know you better than you know yourself.
Studying people is by far the most important thing for us now, and we are involved in a number of different projects in order to build this knowledge.
NARRATOR : But studying people is only the beginning of Volvo's research.
lt turns out that the real secret of a crash-free future may be a car that is less like a person and more like a grasshopper.
EKMARK: We took the grasshopper.
We put it in a harness just before a video screen.
And on that video screen, we would show it sequences that look like near collisions.
NARRATOR : Researchers noticed that grasshoppers travel in swarms of millions, separated from each other by fractions of inches but never collide.
lf cars could do that, the benefits would be huge.
EKMARK: You can think of a swarm of cars that are moving really closely on the highway and then you have a greater capacity on the same highway which will reduce congestion.
Now we've discovered that when a grasshopper is about to have a collision, its nervous system will almost immediately take action.
For instance, when it is almost about to have a collision on the left, its wings will start to compensate so that it moves to the right side.
NARRATOR : The grasshopper's nervous system is made up of highly specialized clusters of nerve cells in various parts of its body.
This enables the grasshopper to detect threats and make adjustments in fractions of a second.
The main reason this system is so efficient? Grasshoppers don't really have a brain.
NARRATOR : They do have brains, of course, but only tiny, rudimentary ones.
Nerve signals don't waste time by going through a central processing unit like a brain, and that's what makes a grasshopper so incredibly efficient in swarms of erratic traffic.
lt is, in essence, a driverless vehicle.
Engineers think, in the future, they'll be able to replicate this behavior in cars using vast arrays of sensors and automated reflexes to make them hypersensitive, instinctive, and utterly crash-proof.
The exciting thing here is really that we can take advantage of 4 1 /2 billion years of evolution when we are designing new collision-avoidance systems for the future.
NARRATOR : And the same systems will let future cars travel quickly and safely, even when packed within inches of one another.
l hope that we will see a swarm of cars going closer, faster, and safer.
When you drive closer, the wind drag is lower, which will reduce power consumption, and that's good for the environment.
NARRATOR : Swarms of cars on future superhighways sounds like a smart idea.
But if it's smart you're looking for, your next car could be an Einstein.
lt's easy to imagine supercars of tomorrow that tear down the highway, look more like rocket ships than cars, and are tricked out with every possible luxury.
But the future may in fact be a whole lot simpler than that.
Simpler and smarter.
Like all technology, we rely on our cars to be smart.
In the future, we'll ask them to be even smarter.
Actually, we may not look at them as cars at all but rather as artificial intelligence on wheels.
Step inside the Pivo, and you'll be greeted by your own robotic driving companion.
A friendly co-pilot who's intelligent and helpful.
[ Beeps .]
Pivo is the creation of Masato Inoue and his colleagues at Nissan, who have decided that the future is not only about supercars but friendly robotic cars, as well.
The car's interior cameras track and analyze your every facial expression so Pivo knows your moods.
And Pivo's smarts don't stop with the onboard robot.
The car's overall design is ingenious, as well.
Pivo has large doors for easy access to the cabin and large windscreens and windows for high visibility.
And in case there are any lingering blind spots, cameras mounted all around the body bring you complete 360-degree vision.
And Pivo doesn't just see in every direction, it rotates in every direction, and this will change driving as we know it.
There will be a 360-degree rotating cabin resting on its four-wheel chassis.
And because all four wheels can rotate g0 degrees, parallel parking wilInever be a problem again, and the driver will always be able to exit the car curbside.
With its huge windows and multiple cameras, Pivo is all about visibility and transparency -- a car that keeps you feeling connected to the outside world.
But what if the smart car of the future replaced your windshield with a computer screen? That's the audacious concept behind Stephane Aubarbier's Assystem City Car.
As its name suggests, the City Car is built for urban living, with a lightweight frame and an unusual diamond-shaped wheel placement that make it ideal for nimble movement in tight spaces.
But the car's most radical concept is inside.
Switch the City Car into smart mode, and a digital display is pulled across the windshield, meaning you can't see out the window at all.
But don't worry.
You'll actually see the road better than before, thanks to a system Stephane calls augmented reality.
In other words, your own two eyes will be no match for the City Car's four mounted infrared cameras, which can see through rain and darkness much better than you can.
The display can call your attention to road signs and hazards.
And because the display is digital, it's entirely customizable.
You will control where your controls live, shift the rearview mirror closer to your line of sight, move your speedometer higher.
Augmented reality will give you a much more useful windshield than your old glass one.
Like the Pivo, the City Car will have cameras inside, too, using a retinal detector to confirm its true owner is behind the wheel.
And the same cameras will make sure the driver stays alert.
WOMAN : Wake upl NARRATOR : The City Car's cameras and sensors could make your ride smarter and safer.
And similar technologies could make your ride a whole lot smoother.
With high-end automobiles, luxury is everything, and future luxury innovations will ensure that the glass remains half full.
The engineers at Mercedes are developing a way to literally smooth out the bumps in the road via a system called Pre-Scan.
We are smoothing out the road completely.
NARRATOR : Infrared laser beams scan the road 1 0 yards ahead of the car, searching for potholes, debris, or any kind of bumps.
Based on what the lasers see, the system then tells the suspension to relax or brace itself for what's coming.
The result -- a steady ride under just about any conditions.
Leave a water glass on the roof, and not a drop will spill.
Mercedes engineers call it the ''magic carpet ride.
'' BALASUBRAMAN lAN : With the radar sensors, with the camera sensors, we are expanding the width and the depth of what we can see or perceive.
The most excitement would be that l'd drive the way l want to with all the pleasure l can get, but l want to be sure that all these sensors take care of me.
NARRATOR : Your future ride will be supersmart and supersmooth, but you may be surprised what that car will be made out of.
You ask yourself, ''Why wouldn't you make it out of wood?'' NARRATOR : Could the future of automotive breakthroughs come from biodegradable and naturally renewable resources like wood? joe Harmon thinks so.
His creation is a 7 00-horsepower supercar built almost entirely out of wood composites.
HAR MON : Wood has incredible performance capabilities, it has a higher strength-to-weight ratio than aluminum or steel.
And you can use it in composite form much like carbon fiber or fiberglass.
When you look at it that way, you kind of ask yourself, ''Why wouldn't you make it out of wood?'' NARRATOR : The real question is, how? HAR MON : Virtually everything on the car other than the engine and transmission starts as this.
This is a sheet of veneer that's very typical for what we use.
Wood is a directional material, so it has a lot of strength in this direction but not much strength in this direction.
So typically, we rotate each layer g0 degrees to balance that strength out.
NARRATOR : The Splinter Car's production team glues tens of thousands of these wafer-thin slices of veneer together into custom-molded car parts.
When finally assembled, wood will make up more than g0% of this hot rod, even the wheels.
HAR MON : We've reinvented the wheel.
lt's made out of 32 layers of rotary-cut oak veneer.
We tested one of the spokes, and it took 6, 000 pounds to break it.
NARRATOR : And it also comes with handcrafted seats.
HAR MON : l took a basket-weaving class to learn how to weave the seats for this car.
And that was a very emasculating experience.
NARRATOR : Emasculation aside, joe is very confident in what they're creating.
We named it the Splinter to kind of poke fun at the people.
Everybody told us it was gonna break apart.
NARRATOR : Actually, Splinter is quite durable and uses innovative design to overcome some obvious challenges.
HAR MON : 7 00 horsepower makes a lot of heat.
So by bringing the exhaust out of the top, we conduct cool air in much easier to keep the engine-bay temperatures down to keep from catching our wood on fire.
NARRATOR : Faced with a future of diminishing resources, a car that is mostly organic makes a lot of sense.
HAR MON : One of the biggest benefits to wood is that it takes very little energy to produce a piece of plywood when you compare that to aluminum, steel, or carbon fiber, especially.
And it's not an oil-, petroleum-dependant material.
lt's a naturally renewable, sustainable, biodegradable material.
NARRATOR : The Splinter Car could very well mean an end to junkyards, and it points to a new era in car design and manufacturing.
l could see in the future a flat-packed, l KEA-type car being shipped to your doorstep that you could assemble yourself.
NARRATOR : Whether it's a future where we chop down a truck from the backyard or pick up a kit car from the local model shop, there's no doubt that joe and his team can see the forest through the trees.
Using a material that's so far away from the norm, it leads you in different directions.
We wanted to take it to the extreme.
We've definitely heard a lot of people say it's not gonna work, and we look forward to proving them wrong.
NARRATOR : That's what innovators do.
They go against the grain and charge full-steam into the future, sometimes with a great deal of eccentricity.
This isn't your grandfather's steam car.
NARRATOR : This is Inspiration, a British car built to reach record-breaking speeds.
And it's powered by a source as old as the Industrial Revolution.
CAND Y: At the turn of the century, steam was a viable alternative with electric and diesel internal-combustion-engine cars.
NARRATOR : In fact, steam never left us.
High-pressure, super-heated steam is responsible for much of the world's electricity.
But how is it that one of our oldest forms of locomotion is a contender for the smart, new alternative fuel of the future? The answer lies in sophisticated engineering.
This is the engine room of the steam car.
We have the 1 2-boiler-tube matrix.
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40 bar pressure.
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250 meters of this.
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250 degrees C.
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burn of 1 , 050 degrees Celsius.
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2 40 volts.
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2 4 volts.
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1 2 volts.
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A reduction crown wheel and pinion gear drive the rear wheels.
NARRATOR : Inspiration's heart is its boilers.
Matt and his team have managed to compress the power of a locomotive into a small, portable boiler.
1 2 of these propane boilers use heat and pressure to rapidly vaporize water into steam.
The steam then hits a turbine engine, driving it up to 1 2, 000 RPMs.
The result -- a supercar that Matt Candy thinks can break the steam-car speed record, which has stood for more than a century.
CAND Y: lt was a version of a Stanley Steamer that holds the recognized world record, set in 1 g06, of 1 2 7 miles an hour.
That's the record that we're hoping to beat.
NARRATOR : Even if they're bursting a few boilers along the way, it's not going to stop Matt from his mission, because he believes steam will be a critical component in future hybrid cars.
Someday, we'll see cars that have several engines or power sources built right alongside one another.
CAND Y: Steam has a means of getting every last drop of heat from the combustion that's taken place.
As a part of the whole, it does have a future.
NARRATOR : For the British, boiling hot water is no doubt a national obsession.
But pumping out the equivalent of g, 000 cups of tea a minute is a bit over the top.
CAND Y: lt has all the elements of some crazy, eccentric British inventiveness, but the technology that we're bringing to it, it is new and it's not been done before.
NARRATOR : Future cars will be made from all sorts of radical materials and powered in all sorts of unexpected ways.
And they'll take you places you never thought a car could go.
We are the first guys to build a car which can dive.
NARRATOR : From the very beginning, cars have been a symbol of our independence.
The cars of the future will give us more independence than we ever thought possible.
l don't need the roads.
NARRATOR : Frank Rinderknecht doesn't even need land, for that matter.
The sQuba has everything you'd want from a futuristic vehicle.
Sports-car fast, stylish, eco-friendly.
With a laser camera mounted up front, it can even drive itself.
But with the push of a button, this car goes where no other has gone before.
R InDERKNECHT: We are the first guys to build a car which can dive.
Probably the most astonishing fact is that we dive in the open, which means that people get wet.
NARRATOR : Thanks to a built-in dive system, this convertible-submarine concept will keep you close to the coral reefs and provide an easy escape route should your oxygen run low.
Powered by propellers on the surface and water jets down below, the sQuba handles as well underwater as it does above it.
R InDERKNECHT: The two water jets can be rotated to adjust to going up and diving under.
This water intake guides the water to the two water jets on the left and on the right side.
The water jets shoot out the water on the side, and propels the car once it's underneath the surface.
NARRATOR : And sQuba has an environmental consciousness in every environment it travels.
The sQuba is fully electric.
lt was very important for us to be zero emission.
NARRATOR : The sQuba will open up a whole new world of possibilities for our future.
A dive-enabled car could be used for transportation for new habitats under the sea level.
NARRATOR : Discovering new places is a passion for some drivers.
For others, getting lost is a much more attractive proposition.
Thanks to the new jeep Renegade concept car, we will soon be able to disappear into the wild without a trace.
QU lGLEY: This vehicle opens up entirely new avenues that let the driver and the occupants literally go more places and do more than they're able to today.
NARRATOR : The Renegade is designed to leave all other off-road vehicles in the dust.
lts mission is to go anywhere and stay there for a very long time.
The electric engine's present range of 400 miles could get you across the Mojave Desert.
But the sky's the limit, thanks to a unique set of power-generating wheels.
QU lGLEY: The same time as it's using energy to get me up the hill, it's recharging itself coming down the hill.
Not only no more stops to the gas station but a range extension for what an explorer or a sports enthusiast has always really been looking for.
The future implication of this is, someday, l'd like to think we can take this battery-storage system and create complete sustainable energy.
NARRATOR : Designing for extremes is what this machine is all about.
And its strategically placed 265-horsepower dual electric motor and a supercharged battery not only keep the Renegade moving forward but keep it connected to the Earth in the most rugged environments.
QU lGLEY: The battery is situated directly between the wheels, under the body ; the motors, at each wheel, as low as possible, which all contribute to an incredibly low center of gravity compared to a typical combustion engine.
NARRATOR : l magine a future where blazing new trails won't come at a cost to the trail itself.
The Renegade is made to run totally silent, so it won't disturb the wilderness.
And thanks to its environmentally friendly design, it won't ever leave a trace.
QU lGLEY: The team took a hard focus on the effects to the environment with this vehicle.
And as Tread Lightly! elements require that the vehicle leaves no history of its presence on the trail, we want to leave no history of this vehicle's presence to the earth either.
So, to that end, all the materials, be it metals, plastics, fabrics, even the compounds of the tires are completely reusable.
NARRATOR : From new frontiers to the final frontier, vehicles of the future will take us to habitats in the furthest reaches of the solar system.
The Lunar Chariot is paving the way to our future in outer space -- and plowing it.
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and drilling it.
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and digging it.
lf we're going to develop the moon and other planets, this construction vehicle will build everything from landing strips to space stations.
America makes some pretty tough trucks -- we all know that.
But this truck, it's different, and it is tough.
Chariot will get on a rocket, go to the moon, and then it'll be going through terrain that is enormously harsh.
NARRATOR : When he says tough, he means NASA tough.
At the extremes, the lunar surface is anywhere from -2 7 0 degrees Fahrenheit to 2 7 0 degrees Fahrenheit.
NARRATOR : The Chariot is not only built to withstand anything the solar system can throw at it, but it actually hungers and feeds off of these extremes.
jUNKIn : lf one part of the vehicle is pointing towards the sun, we'll take the heat from that part of the vehicle and move it to parts of the vehicle that are in the shade.
NARRATOR : To ensure its mobility, the Lunar Chariot is built like a crab, with six independently controlled legs and 1 2 independently moving wheels.
lt won't get stuck, because getting stuck is not an option.
jUNKIn : lf you're going through an area where you get stuck, you can pick each wheel module up, point them in an opposing direction, and you just drive right out.
NARRATOR : Cornering in moon craters with space suits is a bit different from circling the track at Indianapolis.
Astronauts need a different kind of mobility.
jUNKIn : When you're in a suit, you can only see forward.
lt's hard to turn your head, so you can't really see behind you.
So we came up with the idea to put the astronaut on a turret so that the astronaut could see all sides of their vehicle.
NARRATOR : The handling ability of the truck is not only a function of who's driving.
In many instances, the Chariot won't have a driver at all.
At least not behind the wheel.
The lunar truck has three modes of operation.
lt can be operated on board, it can be operated locally, off board, and then it can be operated remotely from a long distance, say, from Earth to the lunar surface.
NARRATOR : The Lunar Chariot is not something we'll see at a nearby construction site.
At a cost of $2 million, it promises to boldly build where no truck has built before.
jUNKIn : lt's moon, Mars, and beyond.
We are taking the baby steps right now, and the lunar truck is just one of those steps to get to a point where we're using Mars as a habitat.
And then after Mars, it's planets outside of our solar system.
You never know where we're going with this, but you know that we're going in the right direction.
NARRATOR : When kids of today dream about getting their licenses, future cars are what they'll dream about.
Cars powered by electricity and steam.
They'll drive without fear, surrounded by sensors.
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and superstrong materials.
They'll climb into cars that defy conventional limits.
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and climb into cars that will do the driving for them.
This.
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-This.
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-This.
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-This.
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-This.
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NARRATOR : These are the cars of the future.
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cruise around town in a mahogany sports car, and drive machines that will take you to new depths.
Technology is pushing from every direction.
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getting faster with each passing second.
Prepare yourself.
The future is closer than you think.
KAKU : The car hasn't really changed much in the past 80 years.
lt's basically a box on wheels.
In the future, we're gonna see a dramatic, revolutionary convergence of advanced technologies -- nanotechnology, artificial intelligence, microsensor technology -- the application of space-age and digital technology, which will shake everything up concerning our car.
NARRATOR : Those revolutionary innovations will mean that cars will someday morph to suit our ever-changing needs.
Determining the shape of things to come begins with a simple question.
just what is a car, anyway? Often referred to as the ''automobile.
'' ''Automobile'' -- like self-moving.
With that definition, an elevator is auto-mobile.
l think a much better word, a much more emotional one, is the word ''cars.
'' lf an automobile is what you use, a car is what you are.
[ Engine revs .]
NARRATOR : lf cars are who we are, then cars have defined us thus far as.
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A box.
Cars kind of all look the same.
They're all boxes.
To make sure that every one of those cars is perfect, you mill them out of huge blocks of steel and iron.
And you make sure that they're put in machines that only put them together in an extremely, extremely precise manner.
Design is really here to be a mediator between you and your world.
But if people's expectations are things should look exactly like they did yesterday, then that's what they're gonna look like.
NARRATOR : And with every new age comes new expectations.
The question is, how will those new expectations reshape our automotive future? Let me introduce you to Gina.
NARRATOR : This is a car we'd all like to meet.
lt's an aluminum-space-frame chassis that gives it these dimensions and these proportions of what really is a classic roadster.
NARRATOR : Aerodynamic, powerful, exotic, sleek -- all the elements of a classic roadster.
But how is this the car of the future? Gina's got something very special under the hood.
Instead of a car with a steel body or a carbon-fiber body, we made this entire car out of a Gina skin, which is very stretchy, can be put over all kinds of structure.
And, in fact, this structure right here is the substructure, which protects you in a crash.
And the skin takes a normal sports car and really makes it a sports car of the future.
So if we want to wake Gina up, l guess the first thing we have to do is ask Gina to open her eyes and wake up a bit, because that's really where the personality of a car comes through.
Hello? There we go.
Can we get a little bit of light out of you? There we go.
The light spills through underneath and shows you the structure and also let it have a little bit of an attitude.
NARRATOR : Inspired by stretching a stocking over a wire clothes hanger, Chris Bangle has taken the concept of a beautiful car and expanded it beyond what most people can imagine.
Gina itself isn't just about stretching cloth.
lt's about stretching your mind into a new idea framework to let you see the materials differently.
lf today Ineed to take a lot of stuff to the dump and so Ineed a lot of space in the back of the car, the car has to change to adapt to that.
But tomorrow, l happen to be going with my wife to a party and l would like the car to look as elegant as we are dressed, can't the car change a bit more into that shape? NARRATOR : Gina will usher in the age of morphing mobility.
l magine a car that changes shape to suit your every need.
BANGLE: Well, if cars really are an avatar for you, they reflect you on the outside to the rest of the world, then it only makes sense that as we change and evolve in how we are as people in this world and relate to one another, the cars have to change with us.
NARRATOR : Gina may be one of a kind, but with the introduction of the Gina concept, car design may never return to its original shape ever again.
The idea that every generation needs to find cars for themselves is quite clear, in the historical sense.
And if you look forward in the future, then the kind of demands that young people put on our generation are really high.
And they expect a different world than the one that we're living in right now.
That's where l think car design has to change to match those expectations.
NARRATOR : And the morphing that Gina can do may be only the beginning, because forward-thinking scientists and designers are planning for a future in which cars can reshape themselves at the molecular level through the emerging science of nanotechnology.
The magic of nanotechnology means that in the future we may be able to grow things atom for atom.
lf you can control the migration of individual atoms, you can literally grow cars in your backyard.
NARRATOR : By manipulating individual atoms and molecules, nanotechnologists will make cars that are vastly stronger, lighter, and infinitely more flexible -- cars like the nanospider.
Volkswagen designers think that one day they'll be able to program extremely tiny machines, none of them more than a half a millimeter in diameter, to assemble themselves into a car.
FAULWETTER : These robots are creating a shape -- a car.
Like, you're driving in a car, and it consists out of a society of little nanorobots.
NARRATOR : The connections between the nanobots could be changed on the fly, letting the car shift its shape as needed.
lt's like a morphing car.
So the vehicle's shape would begin to change based on the dynamics of the wind, based on the speed that we want to go, based on whether we're going up a hill or down a hill.
And this is what we want to be able to do, much like a bird in flight being able to change its shape.
So, in other words, instead of having a car that has a singular shape, the car shape can change.
NARRATOR : Using tiny sensors, the nanodevices could sense impending collisions and strengthen or weaken their connections accordingly, creating active crumple zones.
And when the car has outlived its usefulness -- no problem.
lt's like a new way of recycling things.
lt's not like creating a car and after time, when you don't need it anymore, then crush it or melt it.
You can use the same kind of material to create a different shape for different needs.
NARRATOR : Future cars will be able to redesign themselves on the fly.
But when the rubber meets the road, just how fast will they go? lf you haven't seen the future, you haven't driven fast enough.
Future roads may have speed limits.
But future cars won't.
That's because engineers are retooling cars from the inside out, building a new generation of speed demons that will leave even today's fastest cars in the dust.
lf you haven't seen the future, you haven't driven fast enough.
NARRATOR : This is the Koenigsegg, the fastest street-legal car on the planet.
That's 2 45 miles per hour of handmade Swedish engineering brought to you by one visionary Swedish engineer -- Christian von Koenigsegg.
We build supercars for the future.
NARRATOR : The secret of the Koenigsegg -- a g00-horsepower twin supercharged engine wrapped in an ultralight carbon-fiber frame.
That's what makes it go fast.
But speed isn't only about raw power.
KOEN lGSEGG : Fast is not only top speed.
Fast is about how the car operates as a total, meaning braking, acceleration, cornering, how everything interacts fast to make the package go fast around a circle or on a bad road or in a straight line in top speed all at the same time.
That's fast.
[ Engine revs .]
NARRATOR : With that in mind, Christian von Koenigsegg has hand-tooled every inch of the car to be as responsive as if it were part of your own body.
And what a body it is.
lt makes you feel like Superman.
lt gives me feedback.
lt feels like l put my feet on the road and my hands on the wheels and on the brake disks, basically.
l am connected.
NARRATOR : Feeling that connected doesn't come cheap.
The latest Koenigsegg sells for slightly over $ 1 million, and the wait list is about two years.
But if you can wait a little longer, future models of the Koenigsegg will pretty much tie the car's controls right into your nervous system.
KOEN lGSEGG : Force-feedback systems will further improve the tactile feeling and the connectivity to a car to make it more like an exoskeleton.
There will be technology that monitors your eyes to see what they're looking at and molding seats to your body so you're always comfortable.
Instead of having gears, it will be able to modulate torque and RPM with hand controls so you're always balancing the tip of the maximum power.
NARRATOR : The Koenigsegg will be able to handle anything the road can throw at it at blistering speeds.
But if you really want to see the future of speed, you'll have to get off the roads altogether, because ''street legal'' is only part of the story.
In California's Mojave Desert, engineers and racers are busy building a future in which commutes will be measured in seconds, not hours.
A future in which cars break the sound barrier regularly.
This is the North American Eagle, and it's poised to become the fastest car on the face of the Earth.
lt's a jet fighter on wheels -- literally.
SHADLE: We took this F-1 04 Starfighter, which is a Mach 2 fighter, and we clipped its wings.
We actually removed the wings, removed the horizontal stabilizer, spent years rebuilding everything.
'Cause you can't just go out and buy these things.
And we built this thing on a suspension so that we can actually drive it like a car.
NARRATOR : Two months away from being scrapped to make beer cans, it was a death-defying act to get the Eagle up to speed.
But it seems the Eagle was destined to break the world land speed record of 7 63 miles per hour.
SHADLE: That was the original taiInumber of this aircraft.
7 63 miles an hour represents the world land speed record.
And this being 7 63, we figured there's probably some divine intervention there.
NARRATOR : In fact, Ed believes he can go well beyond 800 miles per hour in his supersonic car.
At speeds like that, ordinary rubber tires would melt like butter, and most metals would buckle.
So Ed and his team reinvented the wheel.
SHADLE: lt's a special aerospace grade of aluminum.
'Cause when you spin these things up to like 1 5, 000 RPMs, they practically turn into potato chips, the way they warp.
So the design had to be really thought through.
l mean, who else has built wheels out there that are capable of turning at g00 miles an hour? l think we're about the first ones.
NARRATOR : And melting wheels aren't the only concern.
Traveling at supersonic speeds involves breaking the sound barrier, and this creates a shock wave.
[ Sonic boom .]
A shock wave in the air is nothing to worry about.
But a shock wave on the ground.
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lt creates lift, and if you're not careful, next thing you know, you're flying this airplane instead of driving this airplane.
lt's a very delicate dance all the way down the track.
NARRATOR : But the biggest technical challenge of supersonic ground travel isn't going fast.
lt's stopping.
Since ordinary brakes would be shredded at these speeds, Ed's team developed a one-of-a-kind set of magnetic brakes made up of two large metal plates in the wheel assembly, each aligned with 2 7 rare-earth permanent magnets.
Hydraulic systems push the magnetic brake plates together creating eddy currents in the aluminum and generating enough resistance to stop a jet fighter in mid-flight.
And just like space-program technologies have become part of our everyday lives, Ed Shadle believes the inauguration of the rocket car will one day supercharge your daily commute.
SHADLE: One of the futures of the automobile that could be answered through a project like this is getting people to work.
Now, if you look at the new HOT lanes that they just opened up between Tacoma and Seattle, you have to pay to go into the left lane so you can scurry along faster than everyone else.
What if that was a track that you move your vehicle onto and it's levitated through our magnetic processes that we've developed here and they're scooted along at 7 00, 800, g00 miles an hour and they get to Seattle in a blink? Wouldn't that be great? That's the kind of future that can come from the technologies that we develop in projects like this.
NARRATOR : Future cars will go really fast.
Does that mean future car wrecks will be really bad? Not necessarily.
In the future, crashes will be a thing of the past.
NARRATOR : No more crashes -- ever? That's a long way from where we are today.
[ Tires screech .]
There's more than 1 .
2 million people getting killed in road-traffic accidents each year.
And that's just the tip of the iceberg.
NARRATOR : In fact, traffic accidents are, globally, the leading cause of death among young people age 1 0 to 2 4 years old.
lt's not a problem.
lt's epidemic.
NARRATOR : The cure for the epidemic is being developed in the labs of Volvo.
lt was here that the three-point seat belt was created.
And it's here that new concepts for a crash-proof future are being hatched.
We take safety very seriously.
NARRATOR : Their newest model is designed to be virtually death-proof.
Creating a car like that starts with analyzing the real-world physics of collisions.
Meet M r.
And M rs.
Benson.
Clive, who's doing the driving today, has been working hard all week.
Meet Lars and Anna, a newlywed couple.
While the couple are arguing about what route to take, the driver takes a moment to look down at the map, not realizing that he's starting to drift into the opposite lane.
In the other car, Clive is listening to his family, drifting off in his mind, not realizing the car coming straight towards him.
NARRATOR : By playing out thousands of realistic scenarios, engineers are able to constantly refine airbag responsiveness, frame design, and other components of the death-proof car.
BROBERG : Looking up from the map, the couple realize that they're in the wrong lane.
At the same moment, Clive looks up and he starts to apply the brakes.
But it's too late.
NARRATOR : These scenarios have helped Volvo build ultra-safe cars.
But they're not resting on their laurels.
Their vision -- a future where crashing is not just survivable.
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but impossible.
This is my car, and l really like it.
In the crash-free future, thanks to auto-brake systems, l don't have to worry about it getting damaged.
NARRATOR : To make a car that won't let itself crash, you have to give it senses.
We gave this car eyes.
Here, we have a laser radar which transmits laser beams in front of the car.
And here's a receiver.
Based on this information, we can calculate the closing velocity to objects in front of the car.
NARRATOR : And you have to give the car reflexes.
lf you're about to crash, your car will take the wheel.
BROBERG : lf a collision is imminent and the driver does not take appropriate action, we can automatically brake the car and completely avoid the collision.
NARRATOR : Using its radar eyes to spot dangers and auto-braking and auto-steering to avoid them, this is one car that won't crash even if you want it to.
But the real goal is to create a car that works with you to avoid collisions.
So we can monitor what's outside the car.
We can also monitor how the car is being used.
This kind of research can help us in the future to actually get inside the driver's head.
NARRATOR : Using software which monitors and tracks your eye movements, head position, and reaction time.
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they're building a future car that will compensate for your bad driving habits.
lt will know when you're distracted, when you're overreacting, when you're nervous, and when you're angry.
lt will know you better than you know yourself.
Studying people is by far the most important thing for us now, and we are involved in a number of different projects in order to build this knowledge.
NARRATOR : But studying people is only the beginning of Volvo's research.
lt turns out that the real secret of a crash-free future may be a car that is less like a person and more like a grasshopper.
EKMARK: We took the grasshopper.
We put it in a harness just before a video screen.
And on that video screen, we would show it sequences that look like near collisions.
NARRATOR : Researchers noticed that grasshoppers travel in swarms of millions, separated from each other by fractions of inches but never collide.
lf cars could do that, the benefits would be huge.
EKMARK: You can think of a swarm of cars that are moving really closely on the highway and then you have a greater capacity on the same highway which will reduce congestion.
Now we've discovered that when a grasshopper is about to have a collision, its nervous system will almost immediately take action.
For instance, when it is almost about to have a collision on the left, its wings will start to compensate so that it moves to the right side.
NARRATOR : The grasshopper's nervous system is made up of highly specialized clusters of nerve cells in various parts of its body.
This enables the grasshopper to detect threats and make adjustments in fractions of a second.
The main reason this system is so efficient? Grasshoppers don't really have a brain.
NARRATOR : They do have brains, of course, but only tiny, rudimentary ones.
Nerve signals don't waste time by going through a central processing unit like a brain, and that's what makes a grasshopper so incredibly efficient in swarms of erratic traffic.
lt is, in essence, a driverless vehicle.
Engineers think, in the future, they'll be able to replicate this behavior in cars using vast arrays of sensors and automated reflexes to make them hypersensitive, instinctive, and utterly crash-proof.
The exciting thing here is really that we can take advantage of 4 1 /2 billion years of evolution when we are designing new collision-avoidance systems for the future.
NARRATOR : And the same systems will let future cars travel quickly and safely, even when packed within inches of one another.
l hope that we will see a swarm of cars going closer, faster, and safer.
When you drive closer, the wind drag is lower, which will reduce power consumption, and that's good for the environment.
NARRATOR : Swarms of cars on future superhighways sounds like a smart idea.
But if it's smart you're looking for, your next car could be an Einstein.
lt's easy to imagine supercars of tomorrow that tear down the highway, look more like rocket ships than cars, and are tricked out with every possible luxury.
But the future may in fact be a whole lot simpler than that.
Simpler and smarter.
Like all technology, we rely on our cars to be smart.
In the future, we'll ask them to be even smarter.
Actually, we may not look at them as cars at all but rather as artificial intelligence on wheels.
Step inside the Pivo, and you'll be greeted by your own robotic driving companion.
A friendly co-pilot who's intelligent and helpful.
[ Beeps .]
Pivo is the creation of Masato Inoue and his colleagues at Nissan, who have decided that the future is not only about supercars but friendly robotic cars, as well.
The car's interior cameras track and analyze your every facial expression so Pivo knows your moods.
And Pivo's smarts don't stop with the onboard robot.
The car's overall design is ingenious, as well.
Pivo has large doors for easy access to the cabin and large windscreens and windows for high visibility.
And in case there are any lingering blind spots, cameras mounted all around the body bring you complete 360-degree vision.
And Pivo doesn't just see in every direction, it rotates in every direction, and this will change driving as we know it.
There will be a 360-degree rotating cabin resting on its four-wheel chassis.
And because all four wheels can rotate g0 degrees, parallel parking wilInever be a problem again, and the driver will always be able to exit the car curbside.
With its huge windows and multiple cameras, Pivo is all about visibility and transparency -- a car that keeps you feeling connected to the outside world.
But what if the smart car of the future replaced your windshield with a computer screen? That's the audacious concept behind Stephane Aubarbier's Assystem City Car.
As its name suggests, the City Car is built for urban living, with a lightweight frame and an unusual diamond-shaped wheel placement that make it ideal for nimble movement in tight spaces.
But the car's most radical concept is inside.
Switch the City Car into smart mode, and a digital display is pulled across the windshield, meaning you can't see out the window at all.
But don't worry.
You'll actually see the road better than before, thanks to a system Stephane calls augmented reality.
In other words, your own two eyes will be no match for the City Car's four mounted infrared cameras, which can see through rain and darkness much better than you can.
The display can call your attention to road signs and hazards.
And because the display is digital, it's entirely customizable.
You will control where your controls live, shift the rearview mirror closer to your line of sight, move your speedometer higher.
Augmented reality will give you a much more useful windshield than your old glass one.
Like the Pivo, the City Car will have cameras inside, too, using a retinal detector to confirm its true owner is behind the wheel.
And the same cameras will make sure the driver stays alert.
WOMAN : Wake upl NARRATOR : The City Car's cameras and sensors could make your ride smarter and safer.
And similar technologies could make your ride a whole lot smoother.
With high-end automobiles, luxury is everything, and future luxury innovations will ensure that the glass remains half full.
The engineers at Mercedes are developing a way to literally smooth out the bumps in the road via a system called Pre-Scan.
We are smoothing out the road completely.
NARRATOR : Infrared laser beams scan the road 1 0 yards ahead of the car, searching for potholes, debris, or any kind of bumps.
Based on what the lasers see, the system then tells the suspension to relax or brace itself for what's coming.
The result -- a steady ride under just about any conditions.
Leave a water glass on the roof, and not a drop will spill.
Mercedes engineers call it the ''magic carpet ride.
'' BALASUBRAMAN lAN : With the radar sensors, with the camera sensors, we are expanding the width and the depth of what we can see or perceive.
The most excitement would be that l'd drive the way l want to with all the pleasure l can get, but l want to be sure that all these sensors take care of me.
NARRATOR : Your future ride will be supersmart and supersmooth, but you may be surprised what that car will be made out of.
You ask yourself, ''Why wouldn't you make it out of wood?'' NARRATOR : Could the future of automotive breakthroughs come from biodegradable and naturally renewable resources like wood? joe Harmon thinks so.
His creation is a 7 00-horsepower supercar built almost entirely out of wood composites.
HAR MON : Wood has incredible performance capabilities, it has a higher strength-to-weight ratio than aluminum or steel.
And you can use it in composite form much like carbon fiber or fiberglass.
When you look at it that way, you kind of ask yourself, ''Why wouldn't you make it out of wood?'' NARRATOR : The real question is, how? HAR MON : Virtually everything on the car other than the engine and transmission starts as this.
This is a sheet of veneer that's very typical for what we use.
Wood is a directional material, so it has a lot of strength in this direction but not much strength in this direction.
So typically, we rotate each layer g0 degrees to balance that strength out.
NARRATOR : The Splinter Car's production team glues tens of thousands of these wafer-thin slices of veneer together into custom-molded car parts.
When finally assembled, wood will make up more than g0% of this hot rod, even the wheels.
HAR MON : We've reinvented the wheel.
lt's made out of 32 layers of rotary-cut oak veneer.
We tested one of the spokes, and it took 6, 000 pounds to break it.
NARRATOR : And it also comes with handcrafted seats.
HAR MON : l took a basket-weaving class to learn how to weave the seats for this car.
And that was a very emasculating experience.
NARRATOR : Emasculation aside, joe is very confident in what they're creating.
We named it the Splinter to kind of poke fun at the people.
Everybody told us it was gonna break apart.
NARRATOR : Actually, Splinter is quite durable and uses innovative design to overcome some obvious challenges.
HAR MON : 7 00 horsepower makes a lot of heat.
So by bringing the exhaust out of the top, we conduct cool air in much easier to keep the engine-bay temperatures down to keep from catching our wood on fire.
NARRATOR : Faced with a future of diminishing resources, a car that is mostly organic makes a lot of sense.
HAR MON : One of the biggest benefits to wood is that it takes very little energy to produce a piece of plywood when you compare that to aluminum, steel, or carbon fiber, especially.
And it's not an oil-, petroleum-dependant material.
lt's a naturally renewable, sustainable, biodegradable material.
NARRATOR : The Splinter Car could very well mean an end to junkyards, and it points to a new era in car design and manufacturing.
l could see in the future a flat-packed, l KEA-type car being shipped to your doorstep that you could assemble yourself.
NARRATOR : Whether it's a future where we chop down a truck from the backyard or pick up a kit car from the local model shop, there's no doubt that joe and his team can see the forest through the trees.
Using a material that's so far away from the norm, it leads you in different directions.
We wanted to take it to the extreme.
We've definitely heard a lot of people say it's not gonna work, and we look forward to proving them wrong.
NARRATOR : That's what innovators do.
They go against the grain and charge full-steam into the future, sometimes with a great deal of eccentricity.
This isn't your grandfather's steam car.
NARRATOR : This is Inspiration, a British car built to reach record-breaking speeds.
And it's powered by a source as old as the Industrial Revolution.
CAND Y: At the turn of the century, steam was a viable alternative with electric and diesel internal-combustion-engine cars.
NARRATOR : In fact, steam never left us.
High-pressure, super-heated steam is responsible for much of the world's electricity.
But how is it that one of our oldest forms of locomotion is a contender for the smart, new alternative fuel of the future? The answer lies in sophisticated engineering.
This is the engine room of the steam car.
We have the 1 2-boiler-tube matrix.
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40 bar pressure.
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250 meters of this.
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250 degrees C.
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burn of 1 , 050 degrees Celsius.
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2 40 volts.
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2 4 volts.
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1 2 volts.
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A reduction crown wheel and pinion gear drive the rear wheels.
NARRATOR : Inspiration's heart is its boilers.
Matt and his team have managed to compress the power of a locomotive into a small, portable boiler.
1 2 of these propane boilers use heat and pressure to rapidly vaporize water into steam.
The steam then hits a turbine engine, driving it up to 1 2, 000 RPMs.
The result -- a supercar that Matt Candy thinks can break the steam-car speed record, which has stood for more than a century.
CAND Y: lt was a version of a Stanley Steamer that holds the recognized world record, set in 1 g06, of 1 2 7 miles an hour.
That's the record that we're hoping to beat.
NARRATOR : Even if they're bursting a few boilers along the way, it's not going to stop Matt from his mission, because he believes steam will be a critical component in future hybrid cars.
Someday, we'll see cars that have several engines or power sources built right alongside one another.
CAND Y: Steam has a means of getting every last drop of heat from the combustion that's taken place.
As a part of the whole, it does have a future.
NARRATOR : For the British, boiling hot water is no doubt a national obsession.
But pumping out the equivalent of g, 000 cups of tea a minute is a bit over the top.
CAND Y: lt has all the elements of some crazy, eccentric British inventiveness, but the technology that we're bringing to it, it is new and it's not been done before.
NARRATOR : Future cars will be made from all sorts of radical materials and powered in all sorts of unexpected ways.
And they'll take you places you never thought a car could go.
We are the first guys to build a car which can dive.
NARRATOR : From the very beginning, cars have been a symbol of our independence.
The cars of the future will give us more independence than we ever thought possible.
l don't need the roads.
NARRATOR : Frank Rinderknecht doesn't even need land, for that matter.
The sQuba has everything you'd want from a futuristic vehicle.
Sports-car fast, stylish, eco-friendly.
With a laser camera mounted up front, it can even drive itself.
But with the push of a button, this car goes where no other has gone before.
R InDERKNECHT: We are the first guys to build a car which can dive.
Probably the most astonishing fact is that we dive in the open, which means that people get wet.
NARRATOR : Thanks to a built-in dive system, this convertible-submarine concept will keep you close to the coral reefs and provide an easy escape route should your oxygen run low.
Powered by propellers on the surface and water jets down below, the sQuba handles as well underwater as it does above it.
R InDERKNECHT: The two water jets can be rotated to adjust to going up and diving under.
This water intake guides the water to the two water jets on the left and on the right side.
The water jets shoot out the water on the side, and propels the car once it's underneath the surface.
NARRATOR : And sQuba has an environmental consciousness in every environment it travels.
The sQuba is fully electric.
lt was very important for us to be zero emission.
NARRATOR : The sQuba will open up a whole new world of possibilities for our future.
A dive-enabled car could be used for transportation for new habitats under the sea level.
NARRATOR : Discovering new places is a passion for some drivers.
For others, getting lost is a much more attractive proposition.
Thanks to the new jeep Renegade concept car, we will soon be able to disappear into the wild without a trace.
QU lGLEY: This vehicle opens up entirely new avenues that let the driver and the occupants literally go more places and do more than they're able to today.
NARRATOR : The Renegade is designed to leave all other off-road vehicles in the dust.
lts mission is to go anywhere and stay there for a very long time.
The electric engine's present range of 400 miles could get you across the Mojave Desert.
But the sky's the limit, thanks to a unique set of power-generating wheels.
QU lGLEY: The same time as it's using energy to get me up the hill, it's recharging itself coming down the hill.
Not only no more stops to the gas station but a range extension for what an explorer or a sports enthusiast has always really been looking for.
The future implication of this is, someday, l'd like to think we can take this battery-storage system and create complete sustainable energy.
NARRATOR : Designing for extremes is what this machine is all about.
And its strategically placed 265-horsepower dual electric motor and a supercharged battery not only keep the Renegade moving forward but keep it connected to the Earth in the most rugged environments.
QU lGLEY: The battery is situated directly between the wheels, under the body ; the motors, at each wheel, as low as possible, which all contribute to an incredibly low center of gravity compared to a typical combustion engine.
NARRATOR : l magine a future where blazing new trails won't come at a cost to the trail itself.
The Renegade is made to run totally silent, so it won't disturb the wilderness.
And thanks to its environmentally friendly design, it won't ever leave a trace.
QU lGLEY: The team took a hard focus on the effects to the environment with this vehicle.
And as Tread Lightly! elements require that the vehicle leaves no history of its presence on the trail, we want to leave no history of this vehicle's presence to the earth either.
So, to that end, all the materials, be it metals, plastics, fabrics, even the compounds of the tires are completely reusable.
NARRATOR : From new frontiers to the final frontier, vehicles of the future will take us to habitats in the furthest reaches of the solar system.
The Lunar Chariot is paving the way to our future in outer space -- and plowing it.
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and drilling it.
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and digging it.
lf we're going to develop the moon and other planets, this construction vehicle will build everything from landing strips to space stations.
America makes some pretty tough trucks -- we all know that.
But this truck, it's different, and it is tough.
Chariot will get on a rocket, go to the moon, and then it'll be going through terrain that is enormously harsh.
NARRATOR : When he says tough, he means NASA tough.
At the extremes, the lunar surface is anywhere from -2 7 0 degrees Fahrenheit to 2 7 0 degrees Fahrenheit.
NARRATOR : The Chariot is not only built to withstand anything the solar system can throw at it, but it actually hungers and feeds off of these extremes.
jUNKIn : lf one part of the vehicle is pointing towards the sun, we'll take the heat from that part of the vehicle and move it to parts of the vehicle that are in the shade.
NARRATOR : To ensure its mobility, the Lunar Chariot is built like a crab, with six independently controlled legs and 1 2 independently moving wheels.
lt won't get stuck, because getting stuck is not an option.
jUNKIn : lf you're going through an area where you get stuck, you can pick each wheel module up, point them in an opposing direction, and you just drive right out.
NARRATOR : Cornering in moon craters with space suits is a bit different from circling the track at Indianapolis.
Astronauts need a different kind of mobility.
jUNKIn : When you're in a suit, you can only see forward.
lt's hard to turn your head, so you can't really see behind you.
So we came up with the idea to put the astronaut on a turret so that the astronaut could see all sides of their vehicle.
NARRATOR : The handling ability of the truck is not only a function of who's driving.
In many instances, the Chariot won't have a driver at all.
At least not behind the wheel.
The lunar truck has three modes of operation.
lt can be operated on board, it can be operated locally, off board, and then it can be operated remotely from a long distance, say, from Earth to the lunar surface.
NARRATOR : The Lunar Chariot is not something we'll see at a nearby construction site.
At a cost of $2 million, it promises to boldly build where no truck has built before.
jUNKIn : lt's moon, Mars, and beyond.
We are taking the baby steps right now, and the lunar truck is just one of those steps to get to a point where we're using Mars as a habitat.
And then after Mars, it's planets outside of our solar system.
You never know where we're going with this, but you know that we're going in the right direction.
NARRATOR : When kids of today dream about getting their licenses, future cars are what they'll dream about.
Cars powered by electricity and steam.
They'll drive without fear, surrounded by sensors.
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and superstrong materials.
They'll climb into cars that defy conventional limits.
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and climb into cars that will do the driving for them.
This.
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-This.
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-This.
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-This.
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-This.
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-This.
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NARRATOR : These are the cars of the future.