Why do auto companies make concept cars? Well, it's usually to try out some new design lines, spitball about how future technologies might fit into the driving experience down the track, and throw some weird ideas out there to grab a headline or two. All of which makes Chrysler's Airflow Vision concept, which it's brought to CES 2020, a real head-scratcher. What on Earth does this thing achieve?
The exterior design bears so little resemblance to a production car it might just as well be a placeholder image. Most of it looks like an unfinished 3D print, and the wheels ... well, maybe in the future, every road will be billiard-table smooth and unblemished by speed bumps.
Time has been spent on the interior, but realistically it could be exchanged for that of nearly any other concept car from the last year or so and nobody would notice. The steering wheel is squared off, which appears to be car designer shorthand for "this thing will self-drive, you won't be needing this much," and the whole cabin is thoroughly designed for people who've grown up with touchscreens, because everything's a smooth, unyielding screen and nothing's a button, save for a single knobby thing in the center console with "start/stop" written on it.
Even the steering wheel controls have nothing that might be construed as mechanical on them, because mechanical feels like last year. We can't see where the door and window controls are, but we'd bet they're smooth and glassy too. And there's no separation between the front and rear windows, because the side windows are single panes on giant double-width gull-wing doors.
In suede and leather, the seats and trim all look very nice with their soft LED lighting. It's just hard to see what the point of the Airflow Vision is. Are we missing something? More photos in the gallery.
Source: Chrysler