What's the point of concept cars?

[Lock流]

Concept cars look beautiful and futuristic, but why do manufacturers spend millions developing them if they're never going to make it into production? Take, for example, the DS X e-tense, a "2035 dream car" produced by the French luxury brand DS. Half open-topped sports car, half luxury saloon, its outlandish styling looks as though it has come straight from the pages of a superhero magazine. Inside, it's no less radical - there's even a holographic personal assistant. It is designed to show what the company thinks a hugely powerful, all-electric self-driving machine might actually be like.

It bears little relation to anything the brand currently produces, but that is hardly the point. Some of its radical styling is expected to make it on to a new road-going car that will be unveiled later this year. Other ideas will feed into future designs, and provide a road map for technical research. "A concept car is a development accelerator," explains DS design director Thierry Metroz. Its role, he says, is to "test the new technologies that we imagine for the future, and accelerate their development". Some concepts are a clear statement of intent. Three years ago, Porsche stole the headlines at the Geneva Motor Show with the Mission E - a concept for a fast, high-powered, long-range electric car.