Skip to main content

NEVS' InMotion concept isn't just a self-driving car, it's a living room on wheels

National Electric Vehicle Sweden (NEVS) is best known as the company that bought the remains of Saab after the iconic Swedish automaker went bankrupt in 2011. But this concept car doesn’t look like any Saab we’ve ever seen.

In fact, the NEVS InMotion concept doesn’t look like a car at all. Taking the idea of autonomous driving to its logical extreme, the InMotion concept is basically a room on wheels that lets passengers chill out while it drives itself around. Unveiled at CES Asia in Shanghai, it will almost certainly never see production. In addition to being fairly impractical, the company behind the InMotion is unstable.

A smartphone app allows users to adjust the interior’s ambient lighting, climate control, and the seats, which have three modes: Private, Social, and Meeting. Access to the cabin is through one large gullwing door. Not surprisingly for a design from a company called National Electric Vehicle Sweden, the InMotion concept runs on electricity, with wireless-charging capabilities.

NEVS InMotion concept at CES First day

In its press release for the vehicle, NEVS said the InMotion concept was designed for a future where shared vehicles are the norm, and car ownership is less popular. NEVS believes a vehicle like the InMotion could reduce congestion, and stay in motion (get it) so much that fewer parking spaces would be needed.

The idea of cars as living rooms on wheels is not entirely new. Volkswagen showed something similar at the 2017 Shanghai Auto Show in the form of its Sedric concept, and Honda unveiled its Unibox concept way back in 2001. If autonomous driving really does become mainstream, reconfiguring cars like this seems like a logical way to take advantage of the tech, and the free time it would create for users. But it’s unclear how safe vehicles like these would be in a crash.

Not that the NEVS InMotion concept will make it to production anytime soon, if ever. Since buying what was left of Saab in 2012, NEVS has struggled to put an electric version of the Saab 9-3 into production. The company now says it is on the verge of starting production at a plant in China, with all cars going to the Chinese market. But it’s still unclear whether NEVS can follow through with that plan, let alone build a more outlandish, futuristic car.

Editors' Recommendations

Stephen Edelstein
Stephen is a freelance automotive journalist covering all things cars. He likes anything with four wheels, from classic cars…
Waymo’s self-driving cars can’t get enough of one dead-end street
waymo

Waymo has been testing its self-driving cars in San Francisco for the last decade. But an apparent change to the vehicles’ routing has caused many of them to make a beeline for a dead-end street in a quiet part of the city, causing residents there to wonder what on earth is going on.

At CBS news crew recently visited the site -- 15th Avenue north of Lake Street in Richmond -- to see if it could work out why so many of Waymo’s autonomous cars are showing up, turning around, and then driving right out again.

Read more
Nvidia isn’t just beating AMD in graphics, it’s still gaining ground. Here’s why
european retailers rtx 3080 317 percent above list geforce 3060 ti

Despite AMD's resurgence in the CPU market, Nvidia still holds all the cards when it comes to the discrete GPU market. That's according to a report from Jon Peddie Research that also showed an overall 3.4% increase in GPU shipments year- over-year.

From the second quarter of 2020 to the second quarter of 2021, AMD lost about 3% market share while Nvidia gained 3% during the same time period. Nvidia also continues to retain the overwhelming share of the discrete GPU market with 83% compared to AMD's 17%. As far as the entire GPU market, Intel technically has the overall GPU crown with a commanding 68% market share compared to Nvidia's 16% and AMD's 15%. This is simply due to most of Intel's CPUs containing an integrated GPU.

Read more
Watch San Franciscans take a ride in Waymo’s self-driving car
Waymo Jaguar I-Pace

Waymo is inviting San Francisco residents to hop inside its self-driving vehicles for a drive around the city.

Welcoming our first riders in San Francisco

Read more