Customer demand for SUVs seems to be growing and growing, with the vast majority of the world’s automakers tailoring their line-ups to suit. But Volkswagen’s executive director of design says that there is something around the corner that may well end up killing off the SUV.
That, of course, is the so-called “Level Five” fully autonomous driving technology.
“At the moment, we see the rise of SUVs, and the descent of limousines and MPVs,” VW design boss Klaus Bischoff told Auto Express.
“We’ve found something that attracts people, that answers a question customers maybe didn’t even know they had,” Bischoff explained.
But, according to Bischoff, that could well change drastically.
“Maybe SUVs will start to look old at some point and people will point at them and say, ‘he’s driving a dinosaur’. We don’t see that now, but I strongly believe that we’re going to see much different vehicles when we get to Level Five autonomy, and then it becomes much more open,” he told the British publication.
The ID concept car Volkswagen unveiled at the recent Paris Motor Show is fitted with what the Wolfsburg automaker calls a fully automated ID Pilot driving mode, which it predicted would be on offer by 2025.
