Land Rover Discovery Vision concept previews the alien tech SUV

>

With a lot of noise and smoke and blue lighting, Land Rover announced Monday night that it would be reaunching its Discovery SUV as a family of vehicles in 2015. The current Discovery is sold in the United States as the LR4, but the new Discovery will spawn a fresh product line, though the concept that they introduced tonight on the USS Intrepid certainly looked quite a bit like the old one.

>

The Discovery Concept might be the SUV of the future. It boasts — in concept —wraparound headlights powered by lasers, infrared foglamps, doors operated by an electric gesture-recognition system, a gesture-controlled tailgate, infotainment operated by touchscreens on the steering wheel, a premium leather interior that falls just short of self-cleaning, rear-seat TVs, all perfect for a tragic James Bond family picnic. It’s hard to say, though, because all we got to see tonight were car doors opening and closing by themselves to a soundtrack of pure base-heavy bombast. They revealed a three-chair backseat, hiding behind the doors like an alluring gartered leg.

>

With this concept, Land Rover is proposing, though not necessarily delivering, something close to an autonomous car. Conceptually speaking, they’re working on a panoramic suite of “smart glass”  technology layered with sensors to give a 360-degree driving experience, and a remote-control feature that allows you to maneuver the car at short distances when you’re not actually inside it, a trick that should be very popular at fancy L.A. holiday parties someday There’s also Laser Terrain Scanning and a bunch of other laser tricks that will allow villains to vaporize their enemies.

>

The Discovery Concept made its debut next to a full-scale model of the future Virgin Galactic shuttle. This was because Land Rover also announced a glorious partnership with Virgin Galactic Monday night. “It is hard to think of a brand which is more synonymous with exploration and adventure,” Virgin founder and beard billionaire Richard Branson said, via exciting videotaped message, though it’s hard to tell what Virgin gets out of the partnership other than access to free cars. As far as we can tell, Land Rover’s involvement in the new space program will largely involve shuttling rich people to and from Virgin’s New Mexico spaceport. But given the way LR is evolving, maybe we’ll see one on Mars some day.