Renault Symbioz Concept Car
If you are the average South African, you will buy at least two ruinously expensive things in your life: a home; and a car. If you (like me) are the very average South African your car will be the more spacious of the two. This is where Renault steps in to ask: why do we insist on thinking of these two things as being separate? Why can your car not be a part of your home instead of being apart from your home? Re-introducing Renault’s concept car/office/lounge/atrium: the Symbioz.
Remember when you had to pull over and work from the middle of nowhere to meet your deadline? Do you recall that time the coffee shop was closed and you had to have a client-meeting in your car? Or that time you couldn’t convince the tent to stay up by itself and you had to sleep in the front seat? Not to mention all the time spent waiting on friends, listening to tunes and fooling around on your phone.
Admit it. You already use your car as if it were a mobile office and entertainment centre. How much better if it were actually designed to accommodate such use? Such as, if your laptop could physically fit on your lap, despite the steering wheel (and your own elbows), and without causing you a hernia? Because the steering wheel (and the pedals) retract. Or perhaps you just need a private (soundproof) corner from whence to watch the game, on the 80cm ultra-wide OLED display. What if, instead of parking in a dingy, bare concrete garage surrounded by boxes and bicycle parts, you parked your car on the deck, in the living room or on the roof (on purpose)?
Renault Symbioz Concept Car
For one thing, it would be the best roadhouse ever! Especially with the Symbioz networked into all your home appliances (and who knows how cool those are going to be by 2030?). But it would also act as a lounge in a real sense: with the front seats pivoting all the way around to create a cosy, four person den complete with skylight, coffee table and ample leg space. And, on the subject of the skylight, the entire top portion of the Symbioz is wrap-around glass, perfect for reading in the rain or looking at the stars.
Of course … the fact that your nap room can drive itself (the Symboiz features Level Four autonomy) feeds into the classic fear of finding yourself at school sans pantalons. But if ever there was someone who could pull off the pantsless look, it would be someone wearing Symbioz. It is, quite literally, an idea that can run away with you. An idea which, far from trying tiredly to escape the box has turned around and re-imagined, reinvented and redesigned the box.
These are early days yet and the Symbioz will most likely become even more impressive as its release date nears. If you’re thinking 2030 seems a disappointingly long way off, remember that 2017 was just yesterday. And if you really can’t wait to spend ridiculous amounts of time in a supremely comfortable and technologically advanced vehicle, test drive a Renault today.
