What does the future look like? Many of us might have dreamed of flying cars, but taking into consideration how humans can’t even drive properly with lines painted on the road itself, it would be a major disaster to put a human behind the wheel of a flying car where there are no actual guidelines all around you, offering 360 degrees of freedom. Perhaps when autonomous driving on the road is perfected, such technology can eventually be ported over to the skies when our mode of transportation works that way, too. Still, that is a long way off if it were even possible, and Fiat Chrysler intends to have a more down-to-earth solution in the form of the Portal self-driving van.
This Portal concept car will debut at CES 2017, and to keep up with its appearance of being a car from the future, it boasts of being electric powered, not to mention having its very own wireless network to boot, now how about that? It might feature Level 3 semi-autonomy standard at the moment, in addition to the right kind of hardware required so that down the road (pun not intended), it can be upgraded to a true Level 4 self-driving capability vehicle. What makes the Portal all the more family friendly is the fact that the seating can be folded flat or even removed in order to have a truly flexible interior configuration option. Imagine it is just you and your dog going on a road trip. Ditch the seats inside so that the both of you are able to sleep inside on the floor with a travel mattress or a sleeping bag! That would certainly be cool.
The Portal itself is able to seats half a dozen adults, and has been specially designed with the “millennial lifestyle” in mind. There is no handbook to describe what a millennial lifestyle is like, so it is all pretty much groping around in the dark. Perhaps it is supposed to be highly affordable and easy to maintain, while offering a great degree of flexibility by virtue of the Portal being able to transform its interior to be a dating area, a mobile office, or even a portable family playroom as the pitter patter of feet come along.
Fiat Chrysler also figured out that millennials have this thing for good business practices and being environmentally friendly, which is why the Portal does not make use of any kind of animal hides where its synthetic leather interior is concerned. The battery in the Portal is said to deliver more than 250 miles of traveling on a full charge, although we doubt that this is possible with a full load. Good thing quick charger support for DC Fast Charge technology is also thrown into the mix, allowing you to have another 150 miles of travel after a quick 20 minute charging session.
Other features of the Portal that will certainly bode well for a futuristic car include sliding doors with illuminated surrounds, LED lights for its front, side and rear panels, docking stations for tablets and smartphones, facial recognition and voice printing capability, among others. While concepts does not necessarily translate to being reality, we do hope to see the Portal make the jump into our reality.
