Search

Cadillac Ventures Into InnerSpace While Teasing OpenSpace Exploration

01.25.22 | By
Cadillac Ventures Into InnerSpace While Teasing OpenSpace Exploration

Like many automakers, Cadillac has migrated to the Consumer Electronics Show to reveal their most exciting concepts. It was a year ago that the automaker unveiled two Halo concept vehicles, each a preview of the brand’s vision of personal transportation unbridled from current driving norms and limitations. The PersonalSpace, a single-seat, personal vertical takeoff and landing concept designed to literally move its passenger above the din and congestion of ground traffic, and the SocialSpace, a roomy, autonomous vehicle for up to six, designed to help passengers relax and recharge. In tandem, the concepts reframe Cadillac from its former repute of traditionalist luxury into a brand invigorated and empowered by future technologies already reshaping vehicles from the inside out.

This year’s CES gave the American automaker yet another opportunity to tout their prognostications of an electric and autonomous future, with a vehicle wrapped in sleeker and more seductive sheet metal: the InnerSpace concept.

Cadillac’s sleek InnerSpace concept represents the automaker’s vision of personal autonomous future mobility as a two-passenger electric and autonomous luxury vehicle.

The third of the Cadillac Halo Concept Portfolio, the InnerSpace is an eye-catching windswept design exercise intended to showcase the freedoms and amenities permitted by autonomous technologies. In sum, relinquishing “the responsibility of vehicle control while dramatic design and advanced technologies maintain the sensation of arriving in a Cadillac.” That it does so with a sports coupe silhouette should pique the general public’s interest more so than its two more explorative design counterparts.

“Electrification and autonomous driving will fundamentally change the role of vehicles and the experiences customers have with them,” said Bryan Nesbitt, GM executive director, Global Advanced Design and Global Architecture Studio. “We’re exploring where that will go with these innovative concepts, envisioning mobility as an ally of wellness, giving customers the ultimate luxury, more personal time rather than taking it.”

Cadillac Innerspace electric car with roof and doors ajar.

Top view of InnerSpace concept car with both doors swung out and sunroof open.

Up top, the InnerSpace concept features an expansive, panoramic glass roof that opens with the doors for easier entry and egress, with each of the passenger seats pivoting outward when the doors are opened.

Cadillac’s concept only has room for two, but the fortunate pair of the near future will be afforded quite the view thanks to a curved panoramic SMD LED display powered by an AI-driven biometric input and interfaces.

Did you note the absence of a steering wheel? In lieu of worrying about steering/navigating, passengers will instead only be tasked to choose from options such as Augmented Reality Engagement, Entertainment, and Wellness Recovery themes during their drive while seated in loveseat-like seating, complete with throw pillows.

Head on photo of Cadillac InnerSpace passenger seats.

Young Asian man seated inside Cadillac Innerspace car behind large wraparound panel screens.

Glass carafe and glass on dash of Cadillac InnerSpace cabin.

Hatchback trunk section opened with small duffle bag in corner.

Young White woman with blond hair and young Asian man with short cropped hair both wearing yellow jackets standing in front of Cadillac concept vehicles.

Cadillac introduced the first two Halo concepts at CES 2021: the PersonalSpace, a single-seat, personal vertical takeoff and landing concept, and the SocialSpace, a roomy, autonomous vehicle for up to six passengers.

Equally interesting, General Motors teased a new upcoming Cadillac concept dubbed OpenSpace, with only a pair of intriguing images hinting of a luxurious two-story mobile interior setting. Could it be an autonomous Cadillac trailer or recreational vehicle – a luxe hotel room on wheels?

OpenSpace, which will be fully introduced at a later date, offers a glimpse of a future chapter for Cadillac’s Halo Concept portfolio.

Gregory Han is a Senior Editor at Design Milk. A Los Angeles native with a profound love and curiosity for design, hiking, tide pools, and road trips, a selection of his adventures and musings can be found at gregoryhan.com.