Post date: Apr 25, 2011 2:34:53 AM

Car of the Future Looks Like a Supersonic Road Rocket [GALLERY]

What will cars look like 10 years from now? Here’s one award-winning vision of the future from Serbian designer Marko Lukovic, showing a three-wheeled electric car that’s packed with futuristic technology.

Chosen as one of the winning projects among 1000 contestants worldwide, this concept car design was honored at the 10th Michelin Challenge Design 2011.

Lukovic calls his design “Supersonic,” and although the car won’t travel past the speed of sound, it looks like it could. Designed to resemble a supersonic aircraft, the car’s two back wheels each have an electric motor attached, driving the narrow, rocket-like vehicle that carries two people — a driver and one passenger — with one sitting in front of the other.

Designer Lukovic envisions a future where lithium-ion batteries are much smaller, compact enough to remove from the vehicle and take with you, charging them inside the home or office just as you do with your cellphones now. And check out that glass on the top and sides — it’s a photosensitive liquid crystal canopy with adjustable transparency for filtering bright sunlight or prying eyes.

One of our favorite features is the autonomous ability to drive itself that Lukovic calls “automatic pilot (driver) mode,” a capability we’re thinking will be commonplace 10 years from now. In that case, maybe the driver’s seat could swivel around to face the passenger seat, where the car’s two occupants could enjoy their morning coffee and quiet conversation while reading their tablets on the way to work.

So this is how we’re going to get around the year 2021? Let’s hope so. Check out the gallery below and let us know if you think this is an accurate vision of the future or a pipe dream.

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Hop In!

The canopy opens from the front.

Instrument Panel

Controls are mounted on a thick stalk that projects into your lap. Maybe it'll be retractable when you place the car in autopilot mode.

Bristling with Electronics

Check out that photosensitive glass, already available today but not quite cost-effective enough for ordinary cars. Yet.

Tandem Seating

The car's narrow design is more aerodynamic, necessitating this single-file seating arrangement.

Badass Silhouette

It vaguely resembles those "streamlined" locomotives from the art deco era.

LED Lights

Stunning looks.

3-Wheeler

Could this be the electro-tryke of the future?