Pioneer's Smart Car Concept System Hands-On: Smells Nice

The folks at Pioneer know exactly what it takes to go above and beyond the call of duty when it comes to in-car personalization. Not just in the way of making your seat warm when it's winter time – that's kids stuff. Here, at CES 2016, we've gotten the opportunity to have a look and feel at and with Pioneer's full collection of in-car goodies, culminating in a smart car system that provides custom tuned sounds, sights, and even smells for you personally.

This concept is not yet in an actual, real life vehicle. It's been tested for application in a car that'll drive on the road eventually, sure, but Pioneer is only in the very early stages with this concept for now. As such, we'll need to twiddle our thumbs while we wait for it to be applied to real vehicles in the future.

One awesome feature this setup has is a steering wheel that has physical buttons that only rise up when they're needed.

Another piece of this puzzle monitors your stress, and is able to play a relaxing playlist of music if you're getting road-rage.

If you are indeed stressed out like a maniac, this system can also release a relaxing scent into the air. You can also enact any of these features manually.

Using cameras on the outside of the vehicle, this concept is able to spot pedestrians and vehicles as they approach. With a 3D sound system inside (right up around your head, even), you'll be notified of potential danger (when you get too close to another vehicle) from the direction of said potential danger.

You'll also see some lovely touch panels in this collection, as well as the potential for augmented reality applications via projection of images up to a panel between you and the road.

This concept by Pioneer has plenty of interesting features – the real kicker is how well they're going to be able to convince a car manufacturer that this system is going to be worth applying to vehicles that'll be mass-produced. For now, it'll remain in Pioneer's portfolio, and we'll just have to bake our own chocolate chip cookies for the smell on the way home from work.

Photography by Chris Davies.