The 2017 LA Auto Show is one of the biggest car shows in the world and this year car manufacturers have come out with some truly bizarre ways for us to get from A to B.
With Tesla showing us that electric is becoming the mainstream car makers have gone to extreme lengths to show their utopian vision of the future.
From electric 4X4s that wouldn’t be seen dead next to a touchscreen to bizarre self-driving offices that let you catch up on work during the daily commute, we’ve got the weird and the wonderful all listed here for you to enjoy.
Project Redspace REDS
We’ll start with one of the weirdest first.
Rather than trying, like Elon Musk, to get rid of a traffic jam Chinese company Project Redspace believes we should be making full use of the time we spend at a standstill on our way to work.
The REDS is a self-driving box that inside contains your very own portable office. The driver’s seat swivels 180-degrees to face backwards while a full-size fold-out desk provides ample space for you to get working.
The car is electric (naturally) and Redspace actually says that it plans to have cars like these on the roads of our congested megacities within just two years.
Bollinger B1
Looking like a cross between a Land Rover Defender and a cheap Transformers toy the Bollinger B1 is a car that hates itself.
You see this is a technologically-powered 4x4 for people who hate technology.
Sure it’s an electric car that boasts over 200-miles of range and over 360bhp, but past that there’s nothing else that suggests this car was made in the 21st century.
No SatNav, just a series of simple dials, a tiny alarm clock display and an air conditioning system that involves rotating a black metal tube punctured with holes.
If this sounds like your way of embracing the future then here’s the sting, it’ll start at $60,000.
Volkswagen MOIA
This is easily one of the most interesting cars that’s being shown at the LA Auto Show. The MOIA concept car is an all-electric minibus that has been built from the ground up for carpooling.
While some companies like Uber do already a Pool system, Volkswagen believes that the reason they’re still not as popular is that quite simply we’re generally pretty antisocial as a species.
People don’t want to be crammed into the back of a seat with someone they’ve never met.
To combat this, the MOIA looks more like the inside of a luxury jet than what is essentially a glorified minibus.
Customers would simply open up the MOIA app, and Volkswagen’s own algorithm would find you the nearest, and quickest car available.
According to the team behind it, journeys would be cheaper than a taxi but still more expensive than public transport because they apparently don’t want to replace busses or trains. It’s a weird place to position yourself as a company and so it’ll be fascinating to see how this gets rolled out in cities.
Model Sondors
Having managed to break the record for the most amount raised on Indiegogo with his electric bike concept, Storm Sondors decided to do something a bit different.
The result is the Model Sondors - A three-wheeled electric car that will reportedly cost just $10,000 and could only be ordered online.
While Sondors had huge success with the bike raising over $12m an electric car is a completely different animal.
Just like the bike the car will be crowdfunded and Sondors believes that thanks to its low cost it could undercut the current electric rivals and make a real dent.
VW ID Buzz
Last but not least is the ID Buzz, or as everyone who doesn’t work for VW knows it: The new VW Camper Van.
We know it’s not new but this is one of the few concept cars that has actually become a reality which is no doubt why VW is so keen to show it off.
It’ll come with a fully-autonomous driving system as well as what we would guess as a 300+ mile range. VW has made a staggeringly large commitment to electric vehicles claiming that by 2030 every single one of its vehicles will be available with an electric motor.
This all-electric utility vehicle will be arriving in showrooms in 2022.