Author: Honda
Date: January 2020
Link: https://www.honda.com/mobility/ces#
In the autonomous future, Honda believes that customers will be able to enjoy mobility in new ways when freed from the responsibility of driving. At the same time, customers may still want to experience the emotion and thrill of driving.
Honda’s Augmented Driving Concept features a seamless transition from autonomous to semi-autonomous driving operation. To respond quickly to the user’s curiosity, the autonomous driving system is constantly on standby, ready to intervene and control the vehicle when needed.
The driving system changes between automatic and manual mode with a switch, and features more than eight modes between fully autonomous and semi-autonomous operation. Various sensors in the vehicle continuously read the user’s intention to smoothly shift between these modes, creating an instinctive driving experience.
With its reinvented steering wheel, Honda’s Augmented Driving Concept offers new types of driving experiences. By patting the steering wheel twice, the vehicle will start. Pull the steering wheel and the vehicle will slow down; push the steering wheel and the vehicle will accelerate.
The Augmented Driving Concept made its U.S. debut at CES 2020, the world’s largest and most influential tech event.
This article, published by Honda, helps us as the designers get a better sense of what Honda is seeking currently as a proper transition to vehicle autonomy. As noted in previous article analyses and in primary research results, it’s critical that we get this transitional environment done correctly, because too many characteristic autonomous vehicle features may drive a user away, not towards a vehicle. Technology like this steering wheel concept allows drivers a choice in their vehicles, so I think if we go into the design phase seeking to give the user the freedom to choose what they would like to do in the back seat, whether that might be more or less traditional, we will likely yield better results and simultaneously progress in the same direction that Honda is going in.
Honda’s augmented Driving CONCEPT: Ces 2020. Honda. (2020, January). Retrieved September 26, 2021, from https://www.honda.com/mobility/ces#.
