Dirk Koring is concept business manager and finance manager at the Volvo Monitoring and Concept Center in Camarillo, Calif.

Born in Australia of German parents, his formal education touched down in Argentina, Germany, Kansas and Belgium en route to a bachelor of science degree in business administration and a MBA in international business management.

He has worked for Volkswagen/Audi in South America, managed sales for Bayer AG in Germany and sold Perrier in Arizona.

The Volvo Monitoring and Concept Center identifies market trends, new product opportunities and the business cases for vehicles the Swedish car maker will pursue in the time frame that stretches out 10 years and beyond.

Vaughan: Talk about a low profile; no one ever talks about your mysterious concept centre. Where are you? In a bunker in Area 51 with the flying saucers?

Koring: We're in Camarillo, California. It's the perfect place to keep track of the bellwether California market and look out at the world. Most of what we do is highly competitive, so we keep a pretty low profile.

Part of our job is to look into the future. We're not trying to predict things like sales results down to the last decimal place. We're looking at much larger issues and broad trends -- things that will influence the direction of business in 10 to 25 years.

Vaughan: It sounds like fun to sit around all day and speculate wildly about the future. Tell me what you've come up with recently.

Koring: There are lots of things I can't tell you, but this is one I can. It's called Tandem, and it's a two-person, ultra-aerodynamic, ultra-light-weight, high-efficiency vehicle for a crowded urban environment.

The idea was originally conceived to address the overcrowded road system of southern California, but we realized it taps into how people work, travel and think almost everywhere in the industrialized world. It got the name Tandem because the occupants sit one behind the other, which helps reduce the 'footprint' of the car on the road. Tandem uses about 50-per-cent less lane space than a conventional car, but provides a Volvo level of safety because we can employ new materials and new occupant-restraint concepts.

It's breakthrough thinking because it moves away from the notion that one car has to fit all needs and moves toward the concept that you use different cars for different tasks. Something more than three-quarters of all car trips in the U.S. involve just one or two occupants, and 90 per cent of commuting trips involve just the driver. Tandem literally reduces the amount of space required to move those people by half. Think about what that does to improve traffic congestion, air quality and fuel consumption.

Vaughan: Progress in any number of automotive areas has happened because governments have forced it down the industry's throat -- safety, fuel efficiency, ultra-low emissions and so on. Shouldn't you be studying what government regulations are going to do next?

Koring: Regulation is a big consideration, but you can't pin it down to when one country will declare a new regulation. You can determine where regulation is likely to be going and try be prepared for the various scenarios.

For example, protection for pedestrians has become a big issue in Japan and Europe, and regulations are coming or already in effect in some markets. We've been tracking this issue and working on this from both a design and a technology perspective.

This is having a major influence on how cars are being designed. It leads to the development of things like the 'soft' hood we have on the XC90 and the push-through windshield wiper posts. The devil is always in the details and what the regulations specify, but knowing it was coming gave us a head start.

Vaughan: Surely the future of transportation depends on where you're being transported. Will the future of transportation in China be anything like the future of transportation in North America?

Koring: China is in a state of hyper-growth and is reinventing itself as its economy and society develops. No one can say exactly what the future market in China will look like. Currently, China's appetite for Volvos is weighted toward the top-of-the-line S80. In the future, in some of the more populated centres, there could be a market for a small commuter vehicle like the Tandem concept. Or it could be something different entirely. The key for car makers will be flexibility.

Vaughan: Tell me about a wild new technology that I've never heard about that might be important in the transportation our children will use.

Koring: There's been lots written about 'home-run' technologies that could change our lives, but what your children will see is an evolution of existing technology. The future -- at least the next decade -- will see a lot of refinement of existing technologies like diesel engines and bio-diesels, more bi-fuel applications, hyper-efficient gasoline engines and gas-electric hybrids, pure electric power and the commercialization of the fuel cell.

Less dramatic, but no less important, will be the use of new materials for weight saving, because weight saved is energy saved. And technologies close to our heart at Volvo known as 'pre-safe systems' that focus on avoiding the collision, not just surviving it.

We'll see a new era in active safety with systems that keep you from wandering out of your lane on the highway or keep you from getting too close to the car in front of you. You'll still be the boss, but you'll have some help to get it right.

Michael Vaughan is the co-host with Jeremy Cato of Car/Business, Sunday afternoon at 1 p.m. on Toronto One.

Michael Vaughan Live is on at 8 p.m. Monday to Friday on Report on Business Television.