A fully autonomous self-driving car doesn’t really need a steering wheel, or a rearview mirror, or even windows to get where it’s going.
But the first models are still likely to have them. (And not just because such features could be legally required.)
In the coming years and decades, as the public decides how to feel about autonomous cars, the way that self-driving vehicles appear will be arguably as important as how they function. And people, Americans in particular, have clearly defined expectations about what cars ought to look like.
“When we’re looking at new devices, you could make them anything, right? Any shape, any form,” said Robert Brunner, the industrial designer who worked for many years at Apple and now runs his own design studio. “But we’re also trying to get people to relate to and understand the technology.”
Self-driving vehicles, he says, should feel inviting and friendly, and should inspire confidence. The way to do this might be to follow Google’s lead, and make driverless cars cute. At the very least, Brunner told me, the ideal self-driving car probably shouldn’t be a “black menacing thing with lots of red lights.”
Engineers and designers will also have to take into account some of the new challenges that accompany driverlessness. For instance: How will self-driving vehicles communicate with human drivers, pedestrians, and bicyclists? The use of blinkers, brake lights, and hazard lights can be automated, surely, but there are many human gestures and cues that are a crucial part of how people navigate the roads—eye contact, the waving of a hand at an intersection—which a machine can’t precisely emulate.
“There are ways of drastically reducing the level of complexity of these systems and making them logical and understandable and reliable,” said Sam Arbesman, the author of Overcomplicated: Technology at the Limits of Comprehension. “The problem is—because of the fact we build the new on top of the old—we aim for these really, really pristine constructions that are built with all these design practices and principles, but things cannot be perfect.”
A more slippery existential problem is that new ways for driverless cars to communicate with pedestrians will only work if people respond to them. But getting people to respond to a new kind of design signal—just getting them to understand it in the first place—is iffy at best.
“People hate ambiguity and unpredictability,” said Chris Rockwell, the CEO and founder of Lextant, a design consulting firm. “I don’t care if it’s your toaster or your car; if you’re confused, you’re not having a great experience. And if it acts in strange or unpredictable ways, it’s not acceptable.”
The trouble is, people are unpredictable. So designing new ways for machines to communicate with them isn’t exactly straightforward. Many ideas for new communications systems have been proposed—driverless cars might feature audible chimes, voice instructions, or text displays to communicate their next moves—but few if any such systems have been tested. “The ideas aren’t the problem; it’s raining ideas,” Rockwell said. “The challenge is really understanding what problem we’re solving. These are human systems, ultimately.”
