The car industry is changing so fast it’s hard to guess what new technologies are actually going to come to fruition, much less a timeline for when those things might happen. Everyone from Tesla to Hyundai wants to be the company that drops the next big thing, which seems to be the Autonomous car. I’m not sure if anyone knows how possible it actually is. Still, GM’s new design shows the American automaker’s dedication to thinking about the future of self-driving cars. If GM has it its own way, we will be playing video games in the car instead of driving them. 

Is GM making a self-driving car?

According to Autoblog, autonomous technology will fundamentally change car interiors at some point in the future. GM is going ahead and thinking about how those interiors might look now before things get moving too fast. 

GM recently made a mockup rendering of what it thinks self-driving GM vehicles might look like on the inside. The rendering looks much more like a computer gaming setup than a car. 

GM wants you to play more video games

I am picking up what General Motors Design folks are putting down. The rendering that they recently posted on Instagram shows a very spacious cockpit with two seats up front and some generous legroom. The next thing you may notice is the massive screen and storage shelf where the dash and steering wheel would normally be. However, the most notable aspect of the rendering is what appears to be a PlayStation controller sitting idle on the “driver’s” seat. 

Aside from the massive – hell, let’s call it what it is – TV screen, there is also, what looks like, a Tesla-sized portrait-oriented touch screen presumably for “controlling” the autonomous GM creation. GM seems to be saying, “well, if you don’t have to drive, you should play video games,” and I agree. 

Autonomous car interiors will be very different

As reported by Autoblog, Chevrolet designer Darby Jean Barber was the mind behind this particular design. We have seen things like this in the past. As soon as self-driving cars became a topic of serious conversation (meaning people were putting money into it), we have seen car designers like Barber offering up their visions of car interiors that weren’t centered around the pedals and steering wheels. 

That sounds obvious but really think about that. Every design element that evet went into an automobile was always made around the driver’s position, vision, and reach. Now all of that is out the window. 

If cars can ever actually drive themselves, then the entire way we think about a vehicle’s cabin can then change. No pedals and steering wheel is 101, but what about how we sit in them? Without needing to see where the car is going for driving purposes, the seating can be reconfigured in any we want. We could all face one another like the back seats of some Land Rover Defenders. 

Are autonomous even cars possible?

This whole thing about how to design and regulate self-driving cars is neither here nor there. It’s fun to dream and philosophize about, but we still aren’t even totally sure that it’s actually very possible on a large scale. Not to mention, in the immortal words of Jeff Goldblum’s character from Jurassic Park said, “Yeah, but your scientists were so preoccupied with whether or not they could, they didn’t stop to think if they should.”