Take any petrol automobile bought right this moment and present it to a mechanic engaged on a Ford Mannequin T 100 years in the past and there’s a pretty good probability they might perceive roughly the way it works. An inner combustion engine on the entrance turns the wheels, carrying a driver behind a steering wheel, some passengers and baggage.

The arrival of electrical vehicles modifications every part. Now not will the form of the automobile be outlined so rigidly by cumbersome engines, exhaust gasoline dealing with or driveshafts. On the similar time, digital know-how guarantees to switch every part from rear-view mirrors to the human driver. By no means has the automobile trade had to deal with so many modifications .

All of those modifications will come to a head within the subsequent few years, says Adrian van Hooydonk, the design boss for BMW Group. Carmakers’ predominant considerations will probably be electrical energy and integrating fast-evolving digital know-how – all whereas bettering environmental sustainability. “Will probably be a reinvention,” he says.

Listed below are a number of the most hanging modifications we are able to count on to see.

‘The skateboard’

Already the dearth of an inner combustion engine has had an impression. Have a look at the entrance of a Tesla and one factor turns into clear: there isn’t a grille wanted to supply air to the engine.

Rival producers (in catchup mode to Tesla, the world’s most dear carmaker) are utilizing the newfound design freedom to supply fashions such because the Hyundai Ioniq 5 and the Honda e that go for smaller however stronger lights in a package deal providing retro futurism that may have featured in a Eighties sci-fi movie.

However the modifications will go far past superficial styling. Electrical vehicles are constructed with a “skateboard” design, with a flat mattress of batteries and wheels and motors at both finish. Electrical motors are additionally smaller than cumbersome inner combustion engines, that means there isn’t a want for an expanse of bonnet in entrance of the motive force.

The US startup Canoo is likely one of the most notable examples of this. Its “life-style car”, which can be delayed till early subsequent 12 months by provide chain issues, could have a notably flat entrance, giving it a boxy form in contrast to most trendy vehicles.

Nonetheless, aerodynamic concerns nonetheless rule to some extent. The UK van startup Arrival initially deliberate a vertical entrance windscreen, however finally opted for a extra conventional raked design as a result of the air resistance lowered the car’s vary.

Extra inside house

The skateboard means electrical vehicles are usually a number of centimetres taller, and lots of carmakers have began with cumbersome sports activities utility autos (SUVs) first to allow them to match in additional batteries. However there’s nonetheless extra space for passengers.

In combustion engine vehicles “the mechanics took up an amazing quantity of house within the total footprint,” says Mark Adams, design director for Vauxhall-Opel. What that house is repurposed for in an EV is then “actually as much as the person car and what you’re making an attempt to do as a model”.

Citroën, one in every of Vauxhall’s stablemates below the Stellantis conglomerate, has already proven one choice: the Ami is a tiny, no-frills two-seater automobile for pootling round cities. It should launch later this summer season within the UK at lower than £8,000.

In France the Ami could be pushed by anybody over 14 years of age, without having for a driving licence.

Adams believes the electrical revolution may lastly arrest the transfer in direction of larger SUVs. “The times of the rising vehicles ceaselessly extra are gone,” he says. “We don’t have to have huge footprint vehicles any extra.”

Fewer automobile components

Producing zero exhaust emissions just isn’t the one main change to how vehicles feel and look. Lowering waste at finish of life is more and more seen as essential for carmakers, and which means utilizing fewer components with fewer sophisticated mixes of supplies the place potential.

For example, a automobile’s entrance grille can comprise 10 to fifteen items, so allotting with it reduces complication with regards to fixing or recycling. BMW’s i Imaginative and prescient Round confirmed how a automobile could possibly be made with solely seven supplies – all recyclable. Attaining that at scale will probably be one other matter, nonetheless.

Neglect the steering wheel

Essentially the most conspicuous absence in future vehicles will finally be the steering wheel. Driverless vehicles are already clocking up hundreds of thousands of miles on roads, and it appears inevitable that largely or absolutely autonomous vehicles (often called stage 4 and stage 5 in trade jargon) will – finally – come on to the market.

“When you then swap it to full autonomous you don’t essentially want to remain in that very same place,” says Vauxhall’s Adams. “We’re all that house.”

Altering “one massive factor modifications 100 smaller issues”, he provides. Much less driving means much less want for simply accessed controls, so vehicles will swap the aeroplane cockpit, stuffed stuffed with buttons and switches, for a cleaner look which is extra about leisure.

General, digitalisation could have an excellent larger impact on automobile design than even electrification, says van Hooydonk.

Lounge on wheels

Canoo calls its US-targeted mannequin a “loft on wheels”, whereas the Korean carmaker Hyundai’s idea Seven car has swivelling lounge chairs and banquette seating that it describes as a “dwelling house on wheels”. It’s clear that some vehicles are going to be handled extra as extensions of house that occur to maneuver as drivers are freed to do different issues.

All that free time on the transfer might give folks extra time for different actions. Cinema-style projectors or digital actuality leisure are two choices within the works. Automotive consultancies and massive tech corporations from Apple and Alphabet to Spotify and WeChat imagine the automobile would be the subsequent place the place they will promote an enormous array of providers akin to movies, video games and music.

Ultimately, interiors may transfer from “lounge” to “bed room”, though placing beds quite than seats in vehicles throws up difficult security issues. Nonetheless, the thought of going to mattress at house and waking up at work, and even overseas, is not a Jetsons-style pipe dream.