Maybe Autonomous Vehicles Don't Have to Look Like Steaming Sacks of Garbage

Thank God we don’t have to look at that Google self-driving car anymore. You know the one — shaped like an unhappy egg wearing a little hat? That one. The one that inspired visions of a future where life is so sterile and miserable that it wouldn’t be hard to imagine masses of people throwing themselves on the road in front of these pod-like commuting appliances.

Still, even as self-driving technology advances, we’re treated to concept vehicles that don’t exactly stir the soul. Some recent designs deserve kudos, but many still resemble motor pool rejects from A Clockwork Orange, terrifying gearheads and libertarians alike.

It doesn’t have to be that way, claims one automotive supplier. You can have your sexy car and still tell it to drive you around.

Magna International, the Canadian supplier of just about everything, is eager to field its autonomous driving suite — a bundle of ultrasonic sensors, lidar, radar, and associated computer system that can be affixed to ordinary vehicles without raising suspicions that the vehicle plans to take our freedom.

To prove how subtle the bundle can be, last fall the company placed the sensors on a decidedly brawny Jeep Grand Cherokee SRT.

Thanks to Jeep’s need to suck plenty of air, there’s no shortage of grille in which to hide a center-mounted, forward-facing radar. Four lidar sensors conceal themselves in special black trim strips Magna applied to all four corners of the vehicle, while another sensor lurks inconspicuously in the lower fascia. No rooftop sensor array, no dome, no little chapeau.

“I think one of the discussions that seems to be out there in society is, as we move towards these more autonomous (vehicles), will the character of the automobile go away? … People are not going to give up wanting their cars to look the way they look,” Larry Erickson, global director of Magna’s exteriors design group, told WardsAuto.

The Grand Cherokee, outfitted for Level 4 autonomous driving and appropriately named the MAX4, uses a matte black thermoplastic to cover the corner lidars, but it won’t always be that way, Erickson said.

“At this point lidar requires a different surface finish to project through, whereas the radar in the upper area (of the corner is) a little bit more flexible so it’s going through a painted surface,” Erickson explained, adding, “I think on just about any vehicle you can incorporate the sensors and not change what was the original (design) intent.”

Magna displayed the self-driving Jeep at the recent Eyes on Design event held near Detroit. The company hopes automakers take notice. Magna’s self-driving array is the hardware it wants the industry to buy when, and if, Level 4 driving becomes commonplace. Earlier this year, Magna invested $200 million into Lyft as part of a partnership that will see it develop self-driving systems for the ride-hailing company. Magna secured an equity stake out of the deal.

Just last month, Magna teamed with May Mobility to build the company’s electric autonomous shuttles, which it hopes to launch in the downtown cores of major U.S. cities.

[Images: Joe Ross/ Flickr ( CC BY-SA 2.0), Magna]