Chrysler’s concept car woos Millennials
Among its features, the Portal has a barrier-free doorway
Fiat Chrysler Automobiles revealed a new, semi-autonomous electric vehicle Monday designed for young families that also provides a window into the automaker’s vision for a future filled with self-driving vehicles.
Called the Chrysler Portal, the vehicle shown at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas was “created by Millennials for Millennials,” according to the automaker, and provides interesting insights into the automaker’s possible future direction.
The vehicle is only a concept — not a production vehicle — so it’s unclear if the company will ever produce and sell it. And as such, designers were free to include cool features that might be too impractical or expensive to include on a production car but ones that are sure to catch the eyes of Millennials.
The concept vehicle, for instance, has unique sliding doors that provide a barrier-free entry that’s nearly 5 feet wide when both doors are open. The barrierfree entry is possible because the pillar that normally separates the front seats from the second row is incorporated into the doors.
Inside, Fiat Chrysler’s concept presents a dizzying list of potential in-car communication technology that was largely designed and imagined by teams from the automaker and Panasonic.
They include a passenger-to-passenger intercom system, an interior camera for group photos, an emergency vehicle alert system, facial recognition for vehicle settings and vehicle-to-vehicle communication systems.
The car was introduced by a quartet of Millennials on the design team who stressed the ability to customize the vehicle, its environmental benefits and its upgrade-ability to possible autonomous driving in the future.
Emilio Feliciano, user experience designer, says the team talked to Millennials worldwide for ideas to make the Portal especially useful for that age group. Engineers cherry-picked important technologies so that the Portal is a “next-generation vehicle that serves as a hub for your life.”
Interior designer Cindy Juette described the vehicle’s color options as warm and “like your favorite go-to sweater.”
Fiat Chrysler’s decision to showcase the vehicle at CES also provides an important window into its strategy for self-driving vehicles. Until now, Fiat Chrysler’s only publicly known involvement in self-driving cars has been its agreement to provide 100 Chrysler Pacifica Hybrid minivans to Waymo, Google’s selfdriving car spinoff.
The automaker, credited with the invention of the minivan in the early 1980s, also said the Chrysler Portal is aimed at making sure it remains an innovator when it comes to vehicles designed for families.
Fiat Chrysler “is a leader in family transportation, and it was essential that we fully explored the idea of what vehicles could look like for this emerging generation,” Tim Kuniskis, the automaker’s head of passenger car brands, said in a statement.
The company declined to say if it considers the Chrysler Portal to be a minivan, SUV or crossover, choosing instead to say it’s “an interpretation of a next-generation vehicle.”
The vehicle, which seats six, has high-tech sensors that allow it to be classified as a semi-autonomous vehicle under industry standards and is designed so it can be upgraded to fully autonomous driving, if desired.
The Chrysler Portal would get its electric power from a lithiumion battery pack mounted underneath the floor. Fully charged, the Portal has an estimated driving range of more than 250 miles.
The automaker, credited with the invention of the minivan, says the Portal is aimed at making sure Chrysler remains an innovator of family vehicles.