It looks like movie tie-ins are getting more common for concept cars. First Porsche designed a spaceship to get”Star Wars,” and today Mercedes has made a concept car inspired by and named after the”Avatar” film series in James Cameron. It is called the Mercedes-Benz Vision AVTR (which stands for Advanced Vehicle Transformation), and Mercedes’ goal is to make it feel much as a creature you become one with, just as the fictional Na’ vi do with all the creatures on Pandora.
Mercedes began by creating most, possibly its curviest to do this Organic layout yet. There’s not a straight line on the Vehicle, Except where the cutouts exist for what Mercedes calls”bionic flaps.” They’re little pop-out panels which increase and bend just like the hairs on an animal. The wheels are round and bulbous. There are ambient Lights all-around when you approach the car and, the auto that responds Change to express emotions based on driving style. The cockpit resides In what looks like a blue bubble.
Within the bubble, the natural theme continues with lines and seats and light. The dashboard has no tools or displays, but pictures of the surrounding world can cast onto the dash including representations of things we can not see, such as mild onto the spectrum. Mercedes also touts vegan leatherette, the flooring and other materials that are recyclable in the cottage.
The interface is exceptional. Rather than a steering wheel or the Na’vi’s hair/nervous system connector, the Vision AVTR includes a control stick — pad? patch? For moving the car. It raises up when you put your hands over it, and by pushing it in the direction you want to 22, the car is controlled. The car does have a fully autonomous mode, where the controller will fall back in the console. The car still drives autonomously when the controller is at half-height, but you can adjust the rate. As when you lift it up for the system, icons are projected on your hands. You then select works using gestures.
Powering the Vision AVTR is a fanciful system. It features a 110-kWh battery good for an estimated 435 miles. However, what’s intriguing is that Mercedes states it uses natural battery chemistry made possible with graphene and it employs no rare earth alloys and can be compostable. It can completely charge in just 15 minutes. Electricity is supplied by the battery to four separate electric motors. The total system output signal is 469 horsepower, and the individual motors permit for highly-controllable torque vectoring. The automobile has four-wheel steering, too, along with the steering can work in parallel, allowing for a type of drift that is forward. It is mostly just to flaunt. The onboard computers also are highly effective, and can be powered from the solar panels embedded into the aforementioned”bionic flaps.”
