Peugeot Reveals Autonomous Instinct Concept

This is the first look at Peugeot’s autonomous Instinct concept unveiled at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, and is also heading to the 2017 Geneva motor show in March.

As you can see the gloriously styled PHEV adopts swept-back ‘shooting brake’ looks familiar to Mercedes-Benz and Jaguar – except the Peugeot Instinct runs rearward-opening rear doors. The plug-in hybrid system produces 225kW.

“We are creating new forms of driving pleasure,” explained Peugeot’s concept car boss Matthias Hossann. “These may come from the interfaces, the architecture or the styling. There is no reason why a self-driving car should be dull to look at or experience,” said Hossann.

Note the vertical LED light strips at the front and the LED headlights themselves which include cameras to monitor the road ahead and which communicate with the driving assistance systems.

Aerodynamics also received full attention from the designers. Those front light strips extend downwards to a low spoiler, there are front air channels which vent to the front wheels and air is drawn inwards from the front doors and vented at the rear diffuser.

Conceptually, the Peugeot Instinct treads the same path as other hybrid concepts – a ‘Drive’ setting operates like a conventional vehicle while a switch to the ‘Autonmous’ setting sees the steering wheel and pedals retract allowing the nicely-styled interior (an evolution of Peugeot’s current ‘i-Cockpit’) to become a place of relaxation or work.

The seats themselves reflect the various themes – using design trends from the aeronautics industry, the bases, backs and headrests can all be adjusted individually and they can be positioned flat for rest, upright for driving or in-between if you opt to view a movie or read your emails.

Within those settings, you can then choose ‘Drive Boost’ or ‘Drive Relax’, ‘Autonomous Soft’ or ‘Autonomous Sharp’.

Those sub-settings relate to the Peugeot Instinct’s ‘Internet Of Things’ and Samsung Artik Cloud which are synced to the driver’s personal devices and are capable of learning your schedule. The example Peugeot gives is a trip home from the gym will see the Instinct automatically adopt the ‘Autonomous Soft’ mode so you can wind-down during the trip home.

Further, syncing your diary provides a link to the satellite navigation system so the Instinct can prompt you to allow extra travel time when it knows about traffic snarls or weather delays causing problems on your intended routes.

The driver controls these various operations via an i-Device mounted next to the central 9.7-inch multi-function screen.

“Samsung Artik Cloud enables easy and transparent interaction between connected devises and services, freeing users from having to worry about the underlying technology,” revealed Samsung’s Dr. Luc Julia.

Peugeot says it plans to begin production of autonomous vehicles by 2025.

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