9 OUTLANDISH CONCEPT CARS INSPIRED BY NATURE (AND PROBABLY SOME DRUGS)

Outlandish Concept Cars Inspired by Nature (And Probably Some Drugs)
By Damon Lavrinc, Wired, 2 December 2013.

A car inspired by ants that can climb walls. A submersible pod that uses the Los Angeles river instead of congested freeways. A bio-suit with one leg that jumps like a kangaroo. These are the concepts nine automakers developed for this year's Los Angeles Design Challenge with the theme "Biomimicry and Mobility: 2025."

Twelve years in the future seems pretty optimistic for these insane creations, but when you give designers from BMW, Mazda, Toyota, Subaru, and a handful of Chinese automakers carte blanche to create whatever their imaginations can conjure - along with a RedBull IV and probably some powerful hallucinogens - you get the Future. Or road-going vapourware.

1. JAC Motors H.E.F.E.I.

JAC Motors' Harmonious Eco-Friendly Efficient Infrastructure or H.E.F.E.I. is hands down the most attractive concept of the bunch, and isn't so much a car as a cog in a larger mobility network. It shares power with other vehicles on the grid, so when one car is idle, it can wirelessly transmit energy to other vehicles. Naturally, it's autonomous - a theme with nearly all the creations this year - and its massive air inlets are just begging to suck in Bambi and her entire herd.

2. Mazda Design Centre Auto Adapt

If the H.E.F.E.I. is the most attractive, the Auto Adapt from Mazda is the most bad-ass. And not just because of its swooping, angular exterior, cab backwards design, and massive wheels. No, it's because it caters to drivers with a car that can swap between autonomous and manual driving modes. According to Mazda's design team, "These vehicles are geared directly to those true drivers out there that long for the excitement found with driving an automobile; the excitement expected to be completely eliminated from the autonomous cars of 2025." Damn we love Mazda.

3. SAIC Motor Mobiliant

We're convinced China's SAIC had this concept stuck on a cork board in its design studio and thought, "What the hell? This'll work." Because aside from its name and the company's description of the Mobilant as "inspired by a simple ant's distinctive body structure and the mutually beneficial relationship between ants and trumpet trees," there's nothing that relates to the Design Challenge theme. Still, it's freaking cool.

4. Qoros Auto Silk Road System

Another entrant from China comes from Qoros, although the name Silk Road has some nefarious connotations nowadays. Regardless, the Silk Road System is the automaker's vision of an integrated transportation network with autonomous nodes shuttling passengers through Shanghai in a sustainable, waste-free "mobility system".

5. Subaru Global Design Team Suba-Roo

It's not a car. It not even a motorcycle. It's a bioengineered suit designed to mimic the movements of a kangaroo - hence Suba-Roo. Cute. Still, it keeps with Subaru's theme of go-anywhere mobility, and comes complete with Google Glass-like headgear, a kinetic energy recovery system, and a "Gyro Tail" to keep the rider upright. Because in the future, our prehensile appendages will make a comeback.

6. BMW Group DesignworksUSA S.E.E.D.

Forget traversing Los Angeles in rush hour. BMW's Sustainable Efficient Exploratory Device (S.E.E.D.) is designed to tackle the toughest terrain on the planet, with a trio of propellers (one at the bottom and two on the sides) to take to the skies. BMW says it was inspired by the maple seed. We say it was inspired by one too many pints of Pils.

7. Changfeng Motor Corporation LaBrea

Changfeng threw out some basic laws of physics with the LaBrea concept, but that doesn't make it any less impressive. The body and wheels are made of a flexible material that spirals to contract and expand based on the driving environment, allowing the LaBrea to squeeze into narrow openings in traffic and seal itself to create an airtight pseudo-submarine. Where Changfeng loses us is with its claim that the LaBrea was inspired by the grasshopper, allowing it to run, jump, and climb. Right...

8. Toyota CALTY Design Research e-grus

Designed as the ultimate electric commuter, the e-grus from Toyota's CALTY design lab can transition from autonomous to manual driving modes, stand upright for city driving, and lie flat for high-speed freeway blasts. Sounds perfect. But then Toyota lost us with a description of the exterior that's, "an active metal surface that sends electric currents for a pliable skin that hardens once positioned vertically or horizontally."

9. BMW Group DesignworksUSA L.A. Subways

Miles of unused waterways running through Los Angeles inspired BMW's design studio to create an underwater subway populated by winged pods that use bacteria and an electrochemical reaction between saltwater and fresh water to create hydrogen fuel. Neato. Even better, BMW imagines thousands of these mini-subs to be autonomously controlled, acting like schools of fish swimming from Hollywood to Huntington Beach.

Top image: SAIC Motor Mobiliant. Source: LA Auto Show.

[Source: Wired. Edited. Links added.]