Ford honors self-driving taxi concept with New Norm Mobility award

MANILA: The COVID-19 pandemic has created challenges for mobility particularly on personal well-being and health, the impact of more deliveries on traffic flow, and social distancing affecting public transportation.

Design graduates are being called upon to come up with mobility solutions, ideas, and concepts that tackle the new circumstances that COVID-19 presents — specifically on safe and secure mobility for those with limited ability, while complying with social distancing protocols.

For this particular concern, the “Muvone” concept that Marius Lochner developed was able to earn the Ford “New Norm Mobility Award.” This is part of the “New Designers Awards,” which is the biggest design graduate show in the UK that caters to students.

This 2020, the awarding ceremony was staged online in collaboration with Top Gear UK. Its editorial director Charlie Turner  was also part of the panel of judges who provided a detailed critique of all design proposals.

Turner explained, “The breadth and creativity shown in the entries for this challenge was deeply impressive and articulated the true depth of next-generation talent coming through the education system. However, it didn’t make picking a winner easy at all.”

Muvone was able to feature a minimalist interior containing flat surfaces and easy-to-clean materials for the vehicle to be sanitized between travels.

Configured to allow greater social inclusion at a time when disabled people need it urgently, the ease of accessibility allows Muvone to be ideal for senior citizens as well as people with limited mobility.

As a self-driving taxi, the concept prioritizes safe individual mobility and allows people to travel on their own terms and to their preferred destination comfortably.

Being a smart vehicle for a modern environment wherein one reflects on the safety and privacy of the user, Muvone is closely related to the human-centric approach of Ford toward design. The appropriateness for use, careful branding, and accommodating design language in modern urban facilities enabled the concept to be put on a pedestal.

Ford Europe Chief Designer Chris Hamilton said, “The COVID-19 crisis has greatly influenced our lives, changing the way people and goods move, and creating a ‘new normal’ for everyone. This requires new ideas for apps, features, designs and mobility, at a time when the vehicle is a preferred private space and personal health is more important than ever.”

The "Halo Project," which is a concept for an app that assists users in making travel options and selecting routes based on personal security instead of a shortest or fastest journey, was one of the runners-up of the award.

Other entries featured ideas for micro-mobility like ride-on devices and electric scooters, as well as for larger vehicles like a driverless chauffer vehicle, an electric truck, and a vehicle that can be converted from a sports car to a truck with just one push of a button.

Photo from Ford

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