Still groggy from the night’s sleep, you climb into your car. It uses your biometric signature to recognize you and greets you by name. The car checks the calendar on your phone to see where your first appointment of the day is and plots a route for you. It locates the cheapest parking spot near where you need to be and reserves it.
The personal assistant, noting your tired state, asks if you’d prefer a chill mode that keeps you relaxed or a fun mode that will wake you up with games or allow you to customize your own music.
Your choice made, you tell the car to start, and it sets you on your way. There is no need for a steering wheel or pedals. The car will drive. You settle in to watch the 37.2-inch infotainment screen that dominates the dashboard.
That’s the future Chrysler sees.
A Concept Car Without a Car
The CES consumer electronics show kicks off this week in Las Vegas, and Chrysler has brought a unique concept car to the party.
Concept cars, in case the term is new to you, are typically design studies that hint at what future cars might look like. Sometimes they’re pretty close to production ready, and automakers bring them to market within a few years with a few tweaks to make them easier to build and sell at scale. Other times, they’re wild ideas unlikely to reach showrooms anytime soon, but intended to suggest what direction a company’s future products might take.
They almost always feature polished exterior design. Automakers sometimes don’t even bother to build them a functional interior.
That makes Chrysler’s Synthesis Concept unique. It’s just an interior. It lacks a body, a roof, wheels, or anything else to suggest it’s something more than a high-concept piece of furniture. Instead, the Synthesis is a pair of automotive seats and a dashboard. But it’s intended to show some of the plans Chrysler is making for the future of cars.
Three Artificial Intelligence Platforms
Key to Synthesis is a trio of artificial intelligence platforms Chrysler collectively calls “Advanced Technology for Real Life.” That somehow becomes the acronym STLA when Chrysler names them.
STLA Smart Cockpit is an infotainment system that takes up most of the dashboard of a car, Chrysler says, using “sculpted black glass to provide 37.2 inches of infotainment for both front-row occupants.”
STLA Brain is the AI software that powers it, designed to learn a driver’s preferences and adapt to their habits. The last, STLA AutoDrive, does the driving.
Automakers use a framework of five levels to discuss self-driving technologies. Systems for sale in 2023, like Tesla’s Full Self-Driving and GM’s Super Cruise program, are Level 2 systems, which can adjust speed and steering but require the driver’s constant supervision.
Related: Self-Driving Cars – Everything You Need to Know
Chrysler says the system “delivers Level 3 autonomous driving, allowing for hands off the steering wheel and eyes off the road.” But the Synthesis concept has no steering wheel, so Chrysler likely plans a more advanced Level 5 system in the long run.
Probably A Long Way Away
The company gives no indication as to when something like the Synthesis Concept could see production, and we don’t expect it in a functioning car anytime soon. But Chrysler has announced plans to go all-electric by 2028. Its Airflow Concept, unveiled at last year’s CES, is likely to become its first all-electric vehicle. The company says it “is committed to launching its first battery-electric vehicle by 2025.”
