Kia HabaNiro concept wants to be the 'everything car' of the future

Keeping with a spicy theme, Kia unveiled the HabaNiro concept at the New York auto show this week, giving the world a preview of its electric car vision. Shaped like a compact crossover or a large hatch, the HabaNiro is all electric and all-wheel drive, designed to offer a range of over 300 miles along with a very futuristic (and very optimistic) Level 5 autonomous driving capability. That's the level that does not require any human driver input, aside from telling the vehicle where to go.

The purpose of the HabaNiro is to preview our upcoming electric and fully-autonomous future, a future that is far closer when it comes to EV tech than autonomous tech. As such, the concept paints a picture of a vehicle's interior once Level 5 autonomy actually arrives, and more importantly, when it is permitted by the government to be used in your jurisdiction. This means that the HabaNiro concept is aiming a little further down the road than it 300-mile battery-electric range suggests — there are a handful of EVs at the moment with this kind of range. But range is not the issue.

Design is what the Habaniro is about, the Kia has even invented a new designation for this bodystyle: the Everything Car. Combined with the EV acronym, you can call it an ECEV, combining the versatility of a sport utility vehicle, a hatchback commuter car, an adventure vehicle, a crossover and a state-of-the-art technology workroom. That's a lot of things wrapped into one, but Kia is not alone in imagining the cars of the future in this shape.

"We wanted this concept to be comfortable navigating city streets, carving turns on a coastal road and off-roading with confidence to remote wilderness adventures," said Tom Kearns, vice president of design for Kia Design Center America. "We imagined a car for everyone and nearly everything."

Since the HabaNiro concept is meant to preview Level 5 autonomy, the interior design is very clean but not spartan, intended to offer a relaxing space for the driver and passengers. Bright colors dominate the interior, which features a variety of glowing lights. A heads-up display stretches across the entire windshield, eliminating the need for screens or an instument panel. A system called Sensory Light Feedback (SLF) allows the driver and passenger to use swiping motions to move items across the heads-up display without touching it.

"HabaNiro’s occupants are kept comfortable by a slim Perimeter Ventilation System (PVS) that quietly and evenly blows a curtain of air throughout the cabin," Kia says. "A soft ambient glow shines through the bold geometrically-patterned floor, creating movement that reflects onto surfaces within the cabin. The Lighting Color Effect (LCE) can be dimmed or brightened, and the hue can be modified to impact the mood of the interior environment."

That's not all when it comes to futuristic tech, as the HabaNiro concept also features the Real-time Emotion Adaptive Driving (R.E.A.D.) system that Kia introduced at the Consumer Electronics Show earlier this year. This system monitors the mood and emotional state of the driver using artificial intelligence-based bio-signal recognition technology, and can personalize and optimize the cabin space in response to it, altering various vehicle systems. (We expect that if the system detects that the driver is exceptionally happy that day, it won't attempt to correct the driver's mood downward — only upward).

Will the HabaNiro stay just a concept? Kia suggests that some of its systems may be able to find their way into production cars, including the EV tech. When it comes to butterfly front and rear doors, or the AI system that detects your mood, those things may be a little more of a stretch, but the automaker points to a track record of making concept cars a reality.

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