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Where would car shows be without an outlandish concept creation intended for the future? Nowhere, that's where, so let's thank French outfit DS for bringing along the most outré machine of the Beijing motor show - it's called the DS X E-Tense and it is said to be a 'dream car of 2035'.
Perhaps its most striking feature is the fact that, when viewed from above, it is asymmetrical - one side appears long than the other, with the driver sitting ahead of their passenger within the cockpit. There are also wild LED lights front and rear, glass canopies for the interior, a glass floor to see the road beneath and scissor doors to gain access.
The out-there appearance of the DS X E-Tense hides an all-electric drivetrain that, in normal operation, has 400kW, or 544hp. This is intended for road use, but, if circuit mode is engaged, then the DS churns out a nice round megawatt. That's 1,000kW, or a simply frightening 1,360hp. All this power sits in a carbon-fibre chassis and features advanced, active suspension and traction control systems.
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Yves Bonnefont, CEO of DS, said "As a carmaker, DS Automobiles has its roots very much in the 21st century and we are currently embarking on a fresh chapter of our history with the launch of second-generation of all-new models. The DS brand's youthful vitality is clearly an asset and with DS 7 Crossback we will continue to show this as the wraps come off a comprehensive range of vehicles that are ahead of their time.
"It is no secret that we are already thinking in terms of our next generation cars and given the revolution that has started to rock our industry, our development work is focused primarily on energy efficiency - whatever its source - and on the driver assistance for more comfort and safety. We already know more or less what our model line-up will be in 2025 so, to keep pushing the envelope, we decided to set ourselves another internal challenge which was to give life to the car of our dreams. The time setting for this dream needed to be sufficiently distant in the future. We consequently chose 2035 as the year in which to set our creation.
"DS X E-Tense is our creation. Our styling and technical teams were given an entirely free hand to pursue their dreams. We dreamed about the way that customers would live and derive pleasure from driving a DS in the year 2035. My personal dream was of a machine I would love to use, both as an automotive lover and as a customer. I take my hat off to the men and women who pooled their dream into this superb dream car."