From The 2009 Movie Avatar, Here Comes Mercedes-Benz Vision AVTR

No wheels, no steering, but this Benz will still move you

Moviemakers get their bread and butter by taking humanity into a different world through imagination. Sometimes, mere mortals allow themselves to immerse themselves in that kind of world and get hooked to every detail without questioning.

When carmakers adopt a similar mode of operation, you can then expect car lovers to be blown out of mind. This is what Mercedes-Benz has done with its Vision AVTR Concept. Taking inspiration from the 2009 acclaimed film Avatar, Mercedes has built a rather hedonistic and futuristic car.

To say the very least, this car has foregone all imaginations and dipped us into something rather outlandish. It doesn’t even possess wheels or anything similar to conventional cars. The shape is perhaps the only similarity it has to a car.

Instead of a steering wheel, the vehicle utilizes what the automaker refers to as a “multifunctional control element” that works by recognizing the presence of the person driving once they place their palm on it. The car can as well use your palm as a way of communication by projecting a menu that then responds to the movement of your hands.

Mercedes further says that this can detect when a family is on board and therefore adapt a safe drive mode automatically. It is so initiative that parents can use the monitor on the dash to check on their children.

Inside out, this a concept that is no doubt far from anything we’ve seen before. It is entire existence is firmly captured in the words of Ola Källenius, the chairman of the Board of Management of Daimler AG and Mercedes-Benz AG, who said that this concept is meant to stretch people’s ideas of what cars could become way down a distant future.