What is your impression when it comes to concept cars or concept vehicles? Take a look at the Honda NeuV concept, and chances are your emotions will be engaged. Sure, the resulting thoughts might not be all that positive, and there could even be an element of criticism in it, but it is all fair as a design is meant to invoke one’s emotions. Should that happen with those who have laid eyes on the Honda NeuV concept, then we can safely say that it has achieved its purpose -- at least for now.
Why are concepts considered to be useful? After all, concepts allow a designer to be able to toy around with ideas that normally would not see the light of day in your average product, and yet a concept can also break down old barriers and open up the mind to explore new possibilities. However, there might be engineering limitations in a particular concept at that point in time which can only be overcome in the right moment when advancements in technology finally catches up with the original vision. However, as we have seen more often than not these days, conceptual vehicles tend to end up being the real deal, although there might be some slight modifications made here and there in order to accommodate the current limitations of the “hardware”, so to speak.
With the Honda NeuV concept, we see the Japanese automobile manufacturer fire up what they call the 'emotion engine'. Honda has described the Honda NeuV concept to be an "automated EV commuter vehicle" which will be able to come with its very own emotions. It does sound somewhat like a whack job and out place, since we do know that a vehicle, no matter how expensive it is, is an inanimate object that will never, ever have the kind of emotions that we human beings do. Perhaps with a little bit of software engineering, this particular school of thought might lean more towards the possibility of ‘false’ emotions?
Honda has worked alongside a company that is known as Cocoro SB, paving the way for Honda to include the NeuV with what they have christened as an "emotion engine". Not, this is far from the “Emotion Engine” was found on the Sony PlayStation more than a decade back, but rather, the emotion engine this tie around will boast of technology that enables the vehicle to react to its owner's conversations and emotions. The whole point of this exercise is to help the owner forge a more emotional bond to the vehicle. While this is definitely far from the level of K.I.T.T. in Knight Rider, it is certainly something which is worth exploring, especially when you take into consideration how men naturally love their rides from the first day they bought it, so perhaps this might be something worth checking out for those who are “emotionally dead” in such an area.
What if we are feeling upset and start to rant and rave in the car as on outlet? It would be frightening to know just how the Honda NeuV concept will react then. Ah well, there is always CES 2017 which we can look forward to when it comes to the debut of the Honda NeuV concept and its emotion engine.
