This is a bit different from my usual future-oriented posts, but today I want to talk about a different kind of telecommuting, a version that seemed unique and recently caught my eye. The idea is this: what if your telecommuters commute with their office?

An All-ElectricTraveling Office

As reported in The Economic Times, “Japanese automobile manufacturer Nissan has collaborated with UK-based design workshop Studio Hardie to transform its zero emission e-NV200 van into an all-electric mobile office – the e-NV200 WORKSPACe.” This new vehicle put the “mobile” in your mobile or telecommuting worker. According to the article,

“This professional office environment on wheels features an integrated fold-out desk, touchscreen computer, wireless internet, smartphone-controlled LED lights, wireless phone charging, Bluetooth audio system, mini fridge and barista-quality coffee machine.”

Heck, that’s better than my home office.

For your traveling employee, or for consultants on the go, this might offer a better option than working in the local Starbucks.

I wrote about a similar concept in November of 2014 in Future Friday: What if your office drove you to work? At that time, it was just a concept proposed by IDEO.

Combine this with Driverless Technology?

The concept vehicle from IDEO was imagined to be a driverless vehicle, allowing workers to work together while they were making a trip to the office. The e-NV200 WORKSPACe is not designed to be driverless, but it can hold two or three people. It is totally electric making it ideal as a “green space,” which will be required in many European countries in the not too distant future. If we combine this with the move to driverless technology that would make it even more attractive to businesses. As I wrote in my previous blog post:

“There are several advantages to this concept. One it cuts down on a company’s need for permanent office space or at least as much as they currently have. A company could own a fleet of these vehicles or they could lease them from some enterprising entrepreneur and avoid the equipment costs. At the end of the day you have no driver whose sole focus is the road, just people working on the core business. The vehicle returns itself to a docking station and recharges itself for the next day’s business. It also overcomes some of the disadvantages of telecommuting by allowing actual face-to-face interactions.”

Gareth Dunsmore, Director of Electric Vehicles, Nissan Europe, said “With property prices in our capital cities at such a premium and the modern professional needing to be ever more mobile, businesses will need to think smart and consider what the workplace of the future looks like.”

With carbon footprints and global warming concerns we may not be too far away from incorporating this technology into our current workplaces in the not-to-distant future.