In Christmas movies that have been released in recent years, Santa has upped his game bringing kids games consoles, laptops and all sorts, but his sleigh hasn’t seemed to quite match the times! This is all about to change with the JNGL64 - an autonomous sleigh to help Santa on his way this Christmas eve.

‘[Santa] can choose from four vanity license plates, five shades of red, and whether the vehicle has treads or skis. There’s even a variety of hood ornaments, including a reindeer, angel, snowman, and decorated Christmas tree.’

The sleigh, engineered by Chris Eve will be fully equipped with heated cup holders for Santa’s cocoa, access to wifi, reindeer GPS, and be fully kitted out with reindeer pelt interior upholstery. The reindeer are being given a year off, as the JNGL64 is powered by belief - the newest green, renewable fuel...You might have guessed that the sleigh isn’t a real product, but is White64 Motors annual holiday project ‘used to build workers morale and market itself to potential clients’.

White64’s project, although fictional, is drawing on the current progressions and exposure that autonomous vehicles are currently getting in in the news. Whilst fully autonomous cars are a few years away, progressions are being made constantly to improve road safety, optimise efficiency, and reduce pollution. In the near future we will see the introduction of intelligent transport systems which will transform urban mobility by providing transport to anybody at any time, the optimisation of car mounted cameras used for mapping and for learning routes, and AI assisted vehicles that will be able to prevent accidents through object detection and prediction.

Last June, we hosted the Machine Intelligence in Autonomous Vehicles Summit in Amsterdam and have videos available exploring the cutting edge research and progressions currently taking place in autonomous and connected cars. Topics available include: