Land Rover's robo-SUVs will take away the tedious and just leave the fun

IN DEPTH Super-smart 4x4s to hit the streets within 10 years

Land Rover's hot new Discovery Vision isn't just a concept.

It's the launch vehicle for Land Rover's plans to bring self-driving, gesture-controlled, augmented-reality, cloud-connected and generally super-smart SUVs to market inside 10 years.

As it happens, it wasn't the only launch vehicle on display during a stunning event aboard the USS Intrepid aircraft carrier on the New York water front. Virgin Galactic's Space Ship One made an appearance, too.

For Land Rover, though, the Vision concept is a tour-de-force of technology that comprehensively blows apart conventional notions of SUVs as big, dumb, lumbering beasts.

Highlights include augmented reality allowing drivers to see right through the bonnet to the ground beneath, smart glass tech that turns windows into high-def, context-aware displays and an inevitable dose of Minority Report-style arm-flapping.

Question is, exactly how much of this should you take seriously? How much is actually likely to see production? And how much is the usual conceptual hubris that's all too easy to talk about but much harder to deliver?

The roll call of clever new technologies is certainly incredibly ambitious. Luckily, we're out in New York and we've had a good sniff around the concept and posed a few searching questions to the right people.

First, let's cover some of the details. On the in-car side there are several big innovations in the concept and under development. First out of the box is the new In Control app. It's Land Rover's take on smartphone syncing and integration. We'll be looking in more detail at that new platform at the show itself, so we'll leave that for a separate story.

The other technologies are further out and arguably more speculative. Most realistic at this stage is gesture control as part of Land Rover's dual quests to reduce both the number of switch-gears and driver distraction.

Suggested gestures includes hand swipes to open doors and control multimedia functionality. It ties in with another new tech - smart glass. The idea here is transparent OLED dislays embedded in the windows.

That allows for everything from tinting windows at the flick of a wrist to displaying context-relevant information as you drive along. You might give rear seat passengers interesting info about the sights and scenery, for instance.

The smart glass also enables Land Rover's transparent bonnet tech. This is all about improving visibility when off-roading. The ability to see right through the bonnet courtesy of a virtual version of what's beneath rendered in the windscreen OLED display would be one hell of a feature.

Cloud connectivity is another part of the package and it's interesting to here Land Rover being up front about the fact that speech recognition is better done server side in the cloud than in-car. Makes sense to us, although for vehicles that could be used in remote locations, internet connectivity could prove problematical.

But it's only the beginning of what Land Rover reckons it has in the pipeline. Another major area of development is autonomous driving. Part of Land Rover's pitch here is similar to most car makers – safer travel, better traffic flow. You know the drill.

To that, Land Rover is adding an off-road angle. What if your SUV could drive autonomously through a farm gate? You'd only have to get out to open and close the gate once.

And what if you could stand outside your SUV and act as spotter when driving through really tough, boulder strewn terrain? Suddenly, you could go places and one-up that previously required spotter and driver.

Land Rover reckons these features could be enabled by a sort of remote control using a tablet device.

Another really interesting piece of off-road tech is the use of lasers to gauge water depth. No more wading and depth gauging required. Your Landie would simply know if the water ahead was too deep.

The list of new technologies is borderline mind boggling. But just how realistic is it and when can we expect to see any of this stuff on Land Rovers you can actually buy?

To find the answers to these questions and more, we caught up with Dr Wolfgang Epple, Director of Research and Technology for both Land Rover and sister brand Jaguar.

First up, just how realistic is it for Land Rover to develop autonomous cars? After all, Google has been throwing money at it for years and still has plenty of work to do. Epple says that much of the development heavy lifting is done by Land Rover's suppliers including Bosch.

The likes of Bosch develop the underlying hardware and software platforms, he says. Land Rover involvement involves the the top layer of actuators and fine tuning. As for when we might see something approaching an autonomous Land Rover, Epple's answer is startling. "Within 10 years."

To be clear, that's not necessarily a fully autonomous Landie. More an 'intelligent' SUV with extensive autonomous capabilities.

So what about the in-car technology? We know the In Control app is immenent. How long before the gesture control, smart glass and the rest appear?

Epple says gesture controls are "coming soon". He won't put a precise date on it but does say it will be "sooner than five years".

The other features are a little further out and fall into that 10-year intelligent SUV category. But it's good to see Land Rover emphasising partnerships with companies like Intel for onboard computing power and Apple with its CarPlay interface for multimedia.

Realistically, Land Rover can't reinvent this wide range of technologies on its own. But Epple makes a pretty convincing argument for how Land Rover can work with partners to create an SUV with world-beating tech.

Land Rovers, of course, have always been market leading. For the future, that has to mean market leading tech.

The Discovery Vision concept proves Land Rover knows that. So even if some of the technologies on display are a little pie-in-the-sky, the important point is that the company knows what has to be done. It's looking very promising.