Automotive prognosticators tend to agree that vehicles in the future will be autonomous and electric, with highly connected cabins that allow riders to watch films, shop or get ahead on work. It's a big and exciting vision, but car companies are still figuring out what those vehicles might look like and how exactly they'd function. Mercedes-Benz attempted to fill in some of the blanks this week by unveiling a concept vehicle that reimagines how people will interact with autonomous vehicles. The true novelty of the vehicle -- a pill-bug-like van known as the Vision Urbanetic -- is that it's designed for interchangeable bodies that can be swapped out in minutes, depending on the circumstance. The idea, the company said, is to create vehicles that can adapt to urban settings in the future, when there may be fewer vehicles on the road but when those vehicles are expected to do more than merely ferry passengers from one place to another.

Automotive prognosticators tend to agree that vehicles in the future will be autonomous and electric, with highly connected cabins that allow riders to watch films, shop or get ahead on work. It's a big and exciting vision, but car companies are still figuring out what those vehicles might look like and how exactly they'd function. Mercedes-Benz attempted to fill in some of the blanks this week by unveiling a concept vehicle that reimagines how people will interact with autonomous vehicles. The true novelty of the vehicle -- a pill-bug-like van known as the Vision Urbanetic -- is that it's designed for interchangeable bodies that can be swapped out in minutes, depending on the circumstance. The idea, the company said, is to create vehicles that can adapt to urban settings in the future, when there may be fewer vehicles on the road but when those vehicles are expected to do more than merely ferry passengers from one place to another.

NAGOYA – In the first test of its kind in Japan, a remote-controlled vehicle was tested Thursday on a public road in Aichi Prefecture, home to Toyota Motor Corp. and other auto firms. For the government-conducted test, the minivan traveled along a 700-meter road in the town of Kota with no one in the driver's seat and an assistant in the passenger seat. The route and traffic signs had been "memorized" by the system ahead of time. A member of the testing team operated the minivan remotely from nearby Kota Community Hall with the aid of video transmitted by the van's onboard camera. The assistant was present to stop the car in case of an emergency.