As a consequence, car brands have launched
a bewildering array of mobility concepts
over the past two years, both at major motor
shows such as those in Detroit and Geneva
and, tellingly, at consumer technology
events such as CES in Las Vegas and design
festivals like the Salone del Mobile in Milan.
These presentations have spanned every-
thing from Renault’s wet bar to Audi’s gym
and Toyota’s retail store. Such is the plastic-
ity of this notional ‘third space’, a term many
self-driving evangelists use to describe the
autonomous car interior. To clarify: the first
space is the home and the second is the
workplace, the two environments in which
we spend most of our time. As autonomous
cars turn drivers into passengers and give
them the opportunity to make more pro-
ductive use of their commute, so the car
becomes the third important space in which
to conduct the various aspects of our lives.An office on wheels
But how much time will we pass there, and
what will we spend most of it doing? A survey
from the AAA Foundation for Traffic Safety
estimates that American drivers currently
spend an average of more than 17,600 minutes
behind the wheel each year – ‘equivalent to
seven 40-hour weeks at the office’, according»FRAME LAB 137