Design Indaba 2016: the car industry is so obsessed with new technology that it is forgetting about people, according to Dutch designers Miriam van der Lubbe and Niels van Eijk.
Industry and governments are failing to consider the social and environmental impact of driverless technology, the duo believe, and are ignoring the potential benefits it could bring to cities.
"There's so much focus on the flashiness of the technology," said van der Lubbe. "But it leaves out the user and what mobility can mean in our society." "The only thing we see in animations of self-driving cars is people working on their laptops," said van Eijk. "So it's yet more technology, and not the extra value you could get out of this."
"You see the driver's seat turning around or there's a table suddenly somewhere in the car, but that does not get to the essence of what mobility can mean in our society," added van der Lubbe.
...