In this episode, McLaren’s new concept racer, the MP4-X. Welcome to your Manufacturing Minute.
Formula One racing can be a technology arms race as each team adjusts, revises and modernizes their car in hopes of gaining a competitive edge. Looking farther into the future, McLaren unveiled its vision of racing, the MP4-X electric concept.
This sleek new concept offers a heads-up display, tire sensors that warn of imminent blowouts and an enclosed cockpit to enhance driver safety. The MP4-X's cockpit is covered with a photochromic, hydrophobic, high-impact material, which would allow it to repel water and change its tinting in reaction to light conditions. With race partner Honda, the McLaren engineers looked at ways to supply power to this electric racer. The team envisioned recharging capabilities through inductive coupling in the track.
Full of future racing ideas, McLaren imagines the MP4-X could be designed with no physical controls instead using visual gesture control systems, holographic instrument panels or signals from the driver’s brain. While there’s a lot more to the MP4-X concept — and some of McLaren’s ideas might seem a little like science fiction — the team insists that all the tech being applied is real, even if still in its earliest stages of conception.
So, What Do You Think?
What do you think about the design ideas behind this racing concept? Could you see of these ideas migrating into consumer vehicles?
Email us or leave your comments below.
Well that’s all the time we have today, but tune in every weekday for your next Manufacturing Minute.