Audi doesn't make trucks.It has sister brands like Man and Scania for that,
grouped together under Volkswagen's Truck & Bus GmbH division. But what if
Audi did make a big-rig truck? What would it look like?
Belarusian designer Artem Smirnov and Ukrainian 3D
modeler Vladimir Panchenko teamed up to figure out exactly that, and what they
came back with were two very different designs. Both are fully electric, but
they take radically different approaches to the role of the truck driver.
The silver design envisions how a fully autonomous
Audi truck might look, with a swappable battery pack and a deployable spoiler
integrated into the cargo box to help with highway aerodynamics.
The second design takes the form of a black and red
oil tanker with two drivers for some reason placed on the roof in open cockpits
and helmets with respirators – looking like something lifted straight out of
Star Wars.
Neither design makes a whole heck of a lot of sense,
frankly. Just look at the wheels, for crying out loud. But then Audi isn't
going to be getting into the big-rig business any time soon, either, so if
you're going to drive all night into the realm of fantasy, might as well dream
big. And while these visions for the most utilitarian form of transport look
decidedly impractical, they do look pretty slick.
