Back to Paris coverage

LANCIA NEA

The Lancia Nea - displayed at the Paris Motorshow, is as much a concept technologically as it is aesthetically. In fact, Lancia have used it as a means of showing us how they expect personal transport to benefit from technology in coming years. Here's what Lancia say about the features of their concept car...


A long-range radar at the front of the car notifies the driver of anything that appears in front of the car while driving. It is also selective, because it can exclude overhead items such as viaducts or objects at the roadside such as advertising hoardings or message boards.

A TV camera - also at the front - detects the direction of the traffic lane and the car's position within it with the aid of sensors. It can tell whether an obstacle identified by the radar really lies in the car's path or otherwise. Another two TV cameras located high up at the sides of the windscreen are able to detect the size of the obstacle (the radar only determines distance with precision, not dimensions) and the area within which the car can manoeuvre in safety to avoid it (they work stereoscopically like the human eye).

Six short-range side radars (three on the left side and three on the right) detect the presence of obstacles located in the lanes on either side of the car. Two TV cameras trained towards the rear of the car check blind spots and notify the driver of overtaking cars. Last but not least, the car also comes with three rear view TV cameras and a parking camera. Each of the detection systems described comes with its own processing unit that screens incoming data and then relays the most important data to a computer with supervisory functions. This main computer merges and synthesises all incoming information, detects dangerous situations and, when necessary, commands the computer that controls the actuators in charge of brakes, engine, steering and so on to reduce the safety distance, accelerate, avoid obstacles and so on.