Rinspeed has made another crazy concept

We don’t know what they’re sprinkling on their fruit loops over at Rinspeed, but we want some. 

In the past, the Swiss outfit has piped out cuckoo concepts including a self-driving hybrid sports car that comes complete with its own rear-mounted drone, and an autonomous “urban sphere” made of glass with a Virtual Reality display. But for this year’s Consumer Electronics Show, the engineers were seemingly told to turn off their minds, relax and float downstream on a wave of creativity, as the results are pretty wacky, even for Rinspeed.

It’s called ‘Snap’, the twenty-fourth concept from Rinspeed and an autonomous concept car comprising of two sections; a rolling chassis called the skateboard, then an interchangeable pod that come together to make a leisure bus of activities. Rinspeed calls it an unparalleled mobility ecosystem, we see it as an epic stag do location.

The theory is that the ‘skateboard’ chassis with all the fast-ageing IT components and mechanicals, will need to be binned (or recycled in Rinspeed’s case) before the long-lasting eco-friendly bod. So when the time comes to part, the chassis just wheels away while the pod just pitches up like a static caravan. Then, when a new set of wheels is ready, it comes underneath and takes the pod away. Or, if you have multiple pods, you just swap them around like Thunderbird 2. 

The bonded chassis features two steering axles along with an EV powertrain from ZF. Having two swivelling points allows the Snap to turn more effectively than a London cab. Meanwhile, the pod is fully autonomous (level 5) complete with a robotic personal assistant that we’re told is happy to run errands, do an Amazon shop and possibly your tax return. The pod is fully customisable, but as it’s for the future, as standard it comes with three (three!) screens for each occupant. Human interaction is so 2017. 

Just like the Boeing Dreamliner, the pod section features dimmable glass elements in case you want to get up to any nefarious activities (perfect for the stag do crowd), plus six external-facing projectors that can be used to display messages to passengers or other road users. Like your mate, Dave, dressed as a nun. Again, perfect for the stag do crowd. 

So, the Snap. You can see it for yourself at CES in Las Vegas early next year. Or tell us what you think below now.