From the editor…

Innovation and the future of automotive design. It’s a topic that brings two distinct images to mind, depending on your outlook. First, for the realists and those of us working on this content every day, it’s advanced driver assistance systems (ADAS) that tweak your steering wheel a little too much, screens replacing all your buttons and dials, software-enabled vehicles and, of course, the ever-approaching all-electric future. For those with a little more imagination, or perhaps who haven’t quite lost sight of all the sci-fi promises of our youth, the mind stretches a little further – maybe even all the way to hover-cars zooming through a neon skyline.

Imagine my surprise, then, when at a recent Lepas event, discussion turned to the next frontier, and it started to sound like that latter group might not be too far off the mark. With things like wing mirrors and rear windows already becoming a thing of the past, the next seeming automotive staple set for a reimagining might just be the wheel itself.

The discussion ranged from battery-charging road surfaces, to the kind of hover-style tech so-far preserved for air hockey tables, and all I could think was: when is a car no longer a car?

We’ve had wheels since about the 3500-3300 BCE mark, if my rudimentary understanding of ancient history is correct. That’s older than the pyramids, or Stonehenge, if you want to go a bit more local. Now, in 2026, conversation among those in the know is centred around whether we can potentially do better. Perhaps the real question is: should we?

The starry-eyed sci-fi fan in me, who was promised a future of jet packs and hover-boards as a kid, only to grow up and be delivered cramped budget air travel and traffic jams on the M25, can’t help but find this exciting. The jaded pessimist rolls her eyes and wonders whether there might be some more pressing room for improvement in modern life, before we start, quite literally, reinventing the wheel.