Nissan IMx Concept Gallery

When is a car not a car? When it's a roving, self-driving "virtual" power plant. That's what Nissan envisages with its IMx Concept, revealed for the first time at the Tokyo Motor Show 2017 this week.

An all-electric crossover, Nissan says it could do more than 370 miles on a full charge, with a healthy 516 lb-ft of torque pumping through its all-wheel drive system. The person behind the wheel won't be responsible for all that time, however. Turn on autonomous mode, and the IMx draws back its steering wheel, reclines the seats in its Japanese-inspired interior, and takes over itself.

When not needed for taxi duties, Nissan envisages the IMx driving itself to a public infrastructure point and acting as a storage battery for times of heavy load on the grid. Not something we can expect from the upcoming new Leaf EV, at least not entirely, but another interesting play on the self-driving car idea.