Lincoln’s first electric vehicle concept was revealed overnight, and it depicts what the future of the luxury marque may look like.
Despite Lincoln’s parent company Ford going full steam ahead with EVs, it’s taking longer for that craze to drip-feed down to the Lincoln brand.
Even so, Lincoln is committed to having three EVs on the market by 2025. Heralding in the start of that project is the Star concept SUV.
This is a concept car, and it will not go into production. In fact, there are so many wild features going on with the concept it’s hard to pinpoint what Lincoln might actually be taking into production.
In any case, the Star is an SUV. You would expect Lincoln to make at least one electric SUV in the next few years, so the shape of the concept could have some degree of relevance.
If you ignore all the flashy lights, the Star is well sculptured with smooth edges and well-rounded body panels. The rear isn’t the prettiest, but it’s still decent.
There’s a lot of glass, namely the roof and bonnet, but it’s not a massive overkill. The bonnet darkens at the driver’s will, making it appear like black bodywork.
Because it’s a concept, there are no battery specs to announce. Instead, Lincoln says its first EVs will share an existing EV platform built by Ford.
As for all the wild design features, the Star is littered with everything from the bizarre to the utterly useless.
When you unlock the Star, you get welcomed with a light show. The front and rear sparkle into life and have a little disco party. All the while, you’re already in the car, ready to get a move on.
Similarly, the Star has three moods to select from, depending on how you feel. All the moods are positive and use light, sound and smell to reflect that. Everything from Coastal Morning to Evening Chill.
If Lincoln wanted a real driver experience, they should have added a pessimistic mood for those days you really don’t care about anything. The car will light up red and blast the Imperial March as you inch through traffic.
The interior is also a long way off production-ready, especially the curved dashboard screen. The fact the passenger seats spin 180-degrees is pretty cool, though.
But the scariest feature of all is that Lincoln has removed the brake pedal.
There’s now just one pedal.
And it’s the throttle.
Apparently, just lifting your foot off the throttle gives enough stopping power that a brake pedal is thus redundant.
There’s really no point to the Star concept, except it portrays some of the ideas we might get in cars ten years up the road.
But, importantly, it does signal the start of Lincoln’s EV era. The prestigious carmaker has embraced the future of electricity, even if it has made them a little bit kookoo.
