This tech-loaded H1st Vision concept car wants to be the future of mobility

A consortium of tech companies and the Renault Group has created a vehicle integrating all kinds of swish tech features. Software Republique – the name of the group – is calling it Human First Vision, or H1st Vision for short, but reckons it’s not a concept car. Confused? Join the club.

The car demonstrates the features cars could potentially have in the future. Looking suspiciously like a mash-up between a Renault, Peugeot and Kia, at least from the outside, the not-concept concept car is all-electric and combines 20 operational innovations, centred around people.

For example, H1st Vision uses biometric technology to lock and unlock the car, it has a driver and vehicle health monitor, uses predictive alerts for occupant and road user protection and optimises vehicle range and charging. It achieves all this combining sophisticated software and hardware and data connectivity.

Software Republique wants us to think of it as a "true experience beyond automotive mobility… not just a concept car [but] a tangible vision of tomorrow's mobility experience". Er, so it is a concept car — glad we cleared that up.

Anyway, labels aside, there’s also a virtual twin of the Human First Vision in the digital universe. That enables the group to make use of virtual reality (VR) and test the car out in different environments. Sounds canny.

Created two years ago, Software Republique is a group made up of six large companies. Eric Feunteun, chief operating officer of Software République, said: “The H1st vision concept car is a connected, physical and virtual object that demonstrates both a robust method for collaboration between the partners and how the technologies of Dassault Systèmes, Orange, ST Microelectronics, Renault Group and Thales complement each other to build the mobility of the future.” (Did he just call it a 'concept car'?).

Collaboratively, these brands combine their know-how, covering automotive, data, hardware, network connectivity, software and security, and intend to create 10 products and services over the next decade. They’ve also clubbed together to incubate over 50 tech starts-ups around the world by 2025.

Well, there’s no denying, the ambition in this roadmap is most definitely not a concept.