The cars of 2015

In automotive skunk works around the globe, designers and engineers are already plotting the car that you'll drive in 2015.
The big question is, will it look any different to the one you're driving now? The experts are divided but if the past six years are any guide, stand by for some dramatic changes.
In 2003, one in three Australian car buyers chose a large car. Since then, large car sales have halved and one of them, the Mitsubishi 380, has disappeared altogether. Smaller cars - ranging in engine size from 1.0-litre to 2.0-litres - outnumber large cars by almost three-to-one and now take up more than a third of the market.
Driven by the financial crisis and dwindling oil reserves, the industry is in the middle of a revolution as profound as the switch from horse and cart to internal combustion engine. The next decade could see more change in the cars we drive than the last century.
The lofty twin goals of zero emissions and zero fatalities will be the guiding pillars of vehicle development in the next six years, and beyond - driven partly by government mandate and partly by economic necessity.
In Europe, car makers will have to comply with tough laws that require their average CO2 emissions per car to be less than 120 grams per kilometre.
To give you an idea of just how high the bar is being set, less than a dozen models on the Australian market currently come in under that number.
Our top-selling model, the Holden Commodore, emits more than twice that level (next month a new engine will reduce emissions by 12 per cent).
The rules will be almost as tough in the US and Asia, which means all imported cars in Australia will, by default, be greener. So what else is likely to change by 2015?
Traffic jams are likely to be quieter and healthier affairs as most manufacturers are moving rapidly towards stop-start technology, which turns off a car's engine when it's stopped