An electric van that doubles as your house's theater room or a remote workspace?
Japanese electronics firm Sharp is leaning into its technological strengths with an electric concept van that is all in on the cabin experience.
Green Car Reports shared details of the company's LDK+ concept that includes a big-screen TV, reversible seats with a table, liquid-crystal shutters, solar panels, and a battery pack.
Sharp's press release envisions the interior as "an extended living room" while acknowledging the EV concept "focuses on the time the vehicle is stationary." The magic happens then, with the rear seats rotating backward to face the big screen and the liquid-crystal shutters going over the windows for privacy.
The company proposes that it could be used not only as a playroom for children or a theater room but an area for remote work, with the 65-volt display providing "seamless communication" to the house.
The technological bells and whistles also include artificial intelligence that will purportedly learn from the appliance settings of vehicle owners' homes to set the air temperature and brightness in the interior. Per the release, the van's battery and solar panels can connect to an owner's home and optimize energy usage, or even kick in in an emergency to power it.
As Green Car Reports noted, a technological company jumping into the EV space isn't completely new, with Sony partnering with Honda to form Afeela. That prototype was described by Axios as a "computer on wheels."
Sharp itself has worked on displays for EVs before indicating its interest in the industry. Foxconn, Sharp's parent company, has its own line of SUVs already in the Taiwanese market. Recently, it unveiled plans for a version being readied for the North American market.
The LDK+ does provide an interesting direction for consumers weighing the switch to EVs.
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Its concept provides some of the benefits of carbon-zero tiny homes. Having a devoted, efficient space that can move with you and power itself carries a certain amount of appeal. The practicality and ease of going in and out of the cabin to your house is a bit of an open question, of course.
Buying an EV, though, already comes with major fuel savings while lowering individual contributions to air pollution. The LDK+ van's battery provides a valuable fail-safe for grid outages that could come in handy during extreme weather events.
As far as when you may be able to get your hands on an LDK+, Sharp didn't provide a firm date during its unveiling. It did promise to "continue to propose comfortable lifestyles that are close to people and contribute to the realization of carbon neutrality."
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