Cars for People Vol. 1 :: AI Grand Prix

Putting AI where my mouth is

⚑ The benefits of doubt.

What are the benefits, exactly? Could be true it’s in our best interests to just lay back and accept larger, heavier, more expensive vehicles.

Manufacturers wouldn’t be building these products if they didn’t benefit mankind, right? This Is What We Want, because what we want was carefully considered, designed, manufactured, and white glove delivered to our doorstep via a well-designed app.

I’m not so sure.

I’ve spent 20 years as a professional with my nose buried in All Things Cars. I’m sad to report there seem to be many (MANY) more failed small car projects than there have been successful ones.

Success is evolution. It’s not strictly sales or public opinion, but what gets built, sold, and survives.¹

Automakers are evolving designs to be more consumer-centric: larger, more feature-packed, and more powerful. Translation: heavier, more expensive, and less efficient.

I’d like to be clear on two things:

1. forcing austerity is madness. People cannot be expected to change unless they’re given an alternative that’s better. This means without alternatives, there’s always going to be a feedback loop that amplifies current consumer trends in favour of more.

2. I used the same prompt for each of these designs. Meaning I told the Artificial Intelligence (Midjourney) one thing and I was able to generate all of these images. I chose specific designs over others, and ranked them for you.

One of the first / best comments I’d ever received on a published story was essentially, “What colour is the sky in his world?”

Using AI like this to bring my opinion to life has been pretty exciting actually. I feel like this simple prompt was able to create a wide range of Cars for People using Midjourney AI (V4):

a simple modern friendly spacious affordable apple-inspired muji style small electric family car, white realistic sketch town background

After the jump, minimal commentary, everything’s numbered—please share which of these small cars speaks to you. For those curious, I added some notes on why I used that specific prompt below the conclusion.

¹ Think F-150, 911, Corolla, Mustang, Accord, S-Class, 4Runner, and so on.

^Now, KEEP SCROLLING! Lower number = better AI image ;)

⤳ FEEL FREE ^to POST THESE IMAGES on your social media, with credit to speedster.news is fine! What, am I supposed to be upset if there are more people exposed to good-looking small cars?? On the information warfare front, the 'Big Car Lobby' is clearly winning—here are some molotov cocktails to slip onto your feeds.

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ASPIRING ^or PRO DESIGNERS: use these as a jumping off point for your own work; just be sure to tag us on social media and invite speedster.news to the launch. ;)

Warm-up sketches

Disqualified for being too abstract or lacking in key details

WARM UP :: 1 - 7 || 7 • Sbarro Challenge, anyone?