Beneath their snazzy exteriors, many concept cars offer only sketchy ideas about the technologies that will actually deliver the ideas for features and performance that they showcase. The i3 is the reverse — a concept whose exterior, though attractive enough, is incidental.

Instead, it's designed to show off the technologies that giant component maker Johnson Controls wants to sell to its automaker customers for inclusion in the next generation of cars and trucks. By packaging them into the i3, they'll catch the attention of car buyers as well.

Living up to the focus on "interface, integration, ingenuity" that inspired its name, it demonstrates a number of innovative systems, including:

A plug-in hybrid power system that can be used to power your house. Based on lithium-ion batteries, this system uses one-third less space and is half the weight of a comparable system based on nickel-metal hydride batteries used in hybrids today. Like other hybrids, it has a gasoline engine, but for the average-length car journey, engine use can be eliminated by charging the batteries from your domestic power supply, or even a solar or wind generator on your garage.

You can even reverse the flow. The batteries contain enough juice to power the average home for two days, so if there's a power outage you can actually run your home electrical equipment from the car. Or you could use it to store cheaper overnight power and use it during the day.

Reverse-folding rear seats. This genuinely ingenious idea turns the conventional ideas of folding rear seats upside down. Instead of folding the seatback down, this power-operated system folds the seat bench up. Made possible by an ultra-thin seat technology that's as safe and comfortable as today's seats, the folded seat leaves a smooth, hard and neatly trimmed bulkhead-style back panel. By opening up the rear of the car for cargo right down its flat floor, it creates an ideal space behind the front seats for pets, or thanks to the integrated special attachments, bikes or sports equipment — all without compromising the generous standard luggage compartment.

Touch-screen heating controls. Today's sophisticated multi-zone heating, air conditioning and climate control systems have led to a confusing proliferation of switches and dials. This system uses a touch-screen control to eliminate up to 20 fiddly and costly individual switches in favor of a stylish high-tech LCD screen. It's more intuitive to use, more flexible to design, uses less space on your instrument panel, and looks great.

Multiple convenience functions. Less innovative, but no less useful, are a raft of extensions of existing technologies in the i3, including a keyless "passive" entry system; the Mobile Device Gateway, that lets you control and access your cell phone, MP3 player or other device safely and easily through the car's controls, or by voice control; a 3D LCD instrument panel that can integrate analog-look and digital readouts; and the Johnson's CraftTec interior panel production process that creates entire multi-section door interior panels in one process, reducing weight, cost and waste material.

Johnson Controls promises that the technologies showcased in i3 will all be ready for production by 2011, and all the components will meet the demanding requirements of the European End of Life Vehicle directive, which requires that 95 percent of vehicle content be recycled by 2015.