Jaguar, the once-British company known for building gorgeous cars that barely worked, than ugly cars that barely worked, to gorgeous cars that actually work, has announced that they’ve developed the steering wheel for the future.
They haven’t.
What they’ve actually done is developed a Google Home device that kinda looks like a steering wheel from F-Zero. Shiny and chrome, the controller is a voice-operated device that can perform many different tasks.
Envisioned as the only part of a car that you’ll actually own, the device, known as the Sayer, can hail you an autonomous car from your living room. It can also give routing recommendations and even suggest which parts of the route should be driven autonomously.
It makes sense that if our future really is with autonomous cars, and ride-sharing fully replaces vehicle ownership, that manufacturers will want to continue to find ways to sell products directly to consumers.
Unfortunately for Jaguar, building a larger, more cumbersome Amazon Echo is probably not the way to do it. First of all, the Amazon Echo already exists. Secondly, we all have smartphones in our pockets that can connect us with ride-share programs and businesses with voice controls. Said phones also offer the convenience of being cameras, web browsers, media devices and even phones.
Imagine going out for the night with your Jaguar Sayer on hand.
I can’t either.
[…] traditional icon of Indian automotive heritage, Jaguar (and corporate sibling under Tata Motors, Land Rover) will be phasing out V8 engines for future […]