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We've all heard about car companies offering 'lease or buy' deals on the batteries for electric vehicles, while most manufacturers also like to do a spot of future-gazing by predicting the cars of the future and what they'll be capable of. Well, Jaguar Land Rover (JLR) is getting in on the act... but not in quite the way you might think.
Meet Sayer - and no, it hasn't been named after a bouffant-haired popster of the 1970s; more on that in a moment. Deviations from the story at hand aside, Sayer is a talking, intelligent, connected steering wheel and this is JLR's 'car of the future' contender.
Showing off Sayer at the inaugural Tech Fest show at Central St Martins art, design and technology college in London, JLR says the steering wheel concept lives in your home and becomes 'your trusted companion'. It is the first voice-activated artificial intelligence (AI) steering wheel, said to be capable of carrying out hundreds of tasks.
The main idea is that in a future world filled with autonomous, connected and electric vehicles, no one actually owns a car any more (a bleak enough thought as it is) - instead, you choose the type of vehicle you want and when you need it, and then when it self-drives itself up to your property, you connect Sayer to the dashboard and away you go.
Sayer isn't just a steering wheel, though, oh no. Say you need to be at a meeting that's two hours away from home by 8am tomorrow. Ask Sayer from the comfort of your living room (or whichever room you like, really) and it will work out the time you need to get up, when an autonomous car needs to arrive at your door and it will even advise you of parts of the journey you might like to drive yourself. If anyone is actually capable of driving in the future, either from a legal or lack of skills standpoint...
Anything else?
JLR says the AI steering wheel is a 'beautifully sculpted piece of art' and that it actually owes its names to prominent designer Malcolm Sayer, who worked for Jaguar between 1951 and 1970, and who was responsible for both the E-Type and the XJS.