Cars for People Vol. 1 :: AI Grand Prix

⚑ The benefits of doubt.

What are the benefits, exactly? Could be true it’s in our best interests to just lay back and accept larger, heavier, more expensive vehicles.

Manufacturers wouldn’t be building these products if they didn’t benefit mankind, right? This Is What We Want, because what we want was carefully considered, designed, manufactured, and white glove delivered to our doorstep via a well-designed app.

I’m not so sure.

I’ve spent 20 years as a professional with my nose buried in All Things Cars. I’m sad to report there seem to be many (MANY) more failed small car projects than there have been successful ones.

Success is evolution. It’s not strictly sales or public opinion, but what gets built, sold, and survives.¹

Automakers are evolving designs to be more consumer-centric: larger, more feature-packed, and more powerful. Translation: heavier, more expensive, and less efficient.

I’d like to be clear on two things:

1. forcing austerity is madness. People cannot be expected to change unless they’re given an alternative that’s better. This means without alternatives, there’s always going to be a feedback loop that amplifies current consumer trends in favour of more.
2. I used the same prompt for each of these designs. Meaning I told the Artificial Intelligence (Midjourney) one thing and I was able to generate all of these images. I chose specific designs over others, and ranked them for you.

One of the first / best comments I’d ever received on a published story was essentially, “What colour is the sky in his world?”

Using AI like this to bring my opinion to life has been pretty exciting actually. I feel like this simple prompt was able to create a wide range of Cars for People using Midjourney AI (V4):

a simple modern friendly spacious affordable apple-inspired muji style small electric family car, white realistic sketch town background

After the jump, minimal commentary, everything’s numbered—please share which of these small cars speaks to you. For those curious, I added some notes on why I used that specific prompt below the conclusion.

¹ Think F-150, 911, Corolla, Mustang, Accord, S-Class, 4Runner, and so on.

I’m doing this to show that, yeah, with the right tools nearly anyone that has intent and curiosity—to say nothing of trained designers—can spend half a day’s work and generate a strong starting point for future designs.

“Mull MiohL” :: The car you clicked on to get here—a harmonious blend of gentle curves, shapes, and wraparound windshield—as if the R50 Mini Cooper and Ford 012C by Marc Newson had been expertly blended into a creamy soup. It finished here because it’s just too toy-like against its more polished competition…

“WUUU” :: If you came at AI with pitchforks and this rolled out of a nearby garage as a peace offering, would you take it?

Yeah, you would.

Part (newer) Renault Twingo, part 500 Abarth, this hatchlet loses marks in two areas: it is too performance oriented (-1), less practical (-1), and isn’t forward looking enough (-1).

I would drive it off this screen in a heartbeat—if only I knew how.

⚑ AI GP: Cars for People Vol. 1 WINNER

Above is the rough progression that led to what I think is a worthy winner.

These three images showcase important elements that featured in the final look, first with an overall silhouette and quarter window, then somehow coalescing into the image below.

Weirdly, after all you’ve seen—don’t you feel like we’re kinda on the same page?

This hatchback is friendly-ish, sporty-ish, and all of its lines are in the right place.

Novel ideas, like plopping horizontal LEDs within a rounded, inset headlight shape work surprisingly well. As does the clamshell hood and grille shape; I’m wondering if this illusion would fall apart once the 3rd dimension is added. Probably not.

For my money, it could be a ~2028 Abarth—or perhaps by then speedster.news will have a startup boutique manufacturing division to do it ourselves.

For all but a few shining examples (see above), Midjourney AI was able to approximate a wide variety of small, unique, people-focused cars.

Many have elements borrowed from other modest machines, but the point is not to point to one specific sketch and claim it’s “the best”.

I’m doing this to show that, yeah, with the right tools nearly anyone that has intent and curiosity—to say nothing of trained designers—can spend half a day’s work and generate a strong starting point for future designs.

If small cars cost a fortune to develop, maybe we’ll end up with the PEZ dispenser approach: same basic mechanical parts, slightly tweaked flavours, and a huge number of avatars on top to covet and collect.

Midjourney AI (V4) was able to create all this with a basic command; I feel we owe ourselves the curiosity to more openly dream in AI.

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