Probably the most damage should be like smoke or something. If another hits another car just have it nudge and bump n stuff.
Also I like the name Autoworld, I couldn't have come up with a better name myself.
All of this i can agree with to the fullest extend.
Actually, a weather system would not be too hard to implement (the same goes for dark maps). We even have a day/night cycle planned. However, weather will come later. For now, we will be focusing on more core features (menu, map switching, camera switching, environments, etc).
I would advise to first make it more of a game.
And with that i don't mean to offend anyone, but if you really want to show the potential of the game, you gotta have at least the rough outline of how the player interacts with the game.
What kind of progression is there in the game? Does the player work towards beating other racers to get better cars/parts to take on better opponents or does the player try to gather as much parts as possible to create an army to take over the autoworld?
Of course the latter sounds silly, but all i am trying to say is that fooling around in an open world is one thing, but i would suggest putting a rough idea of the goal of the player in the game.
While a menu and map switching, camera switching and enviroments are all important as well, you want to figure out what makes your game fun and/or if you need to change things around (drastically or not) to make it more fun.
After some playtesting you do then, you may find that some (core) features may not be needed after all.
Don't get me wrong, you give good core feature examples, but i think getting the feeling of progression in the game might be a bit more important.
Especially when you showcase the game during development.
If people don't see any feeling of progression in the game (not feature wise but in-game progression of the player), they get bored soon.
Of course, i am not a 100% game developer, but i have seen the idea and it always came back in my study game design.
EDIT:
In other news:
Warning spicy opinion: I hate the looks of the cars. The wheels are to big and too close together. But ehh it looks fine.
/spiceyness over.
I am sure they want to know everyone's opinion about what they have showed so far. :)
The style is close to the style of games like Road Trip adventure, where the cars have a very similar style, quite big wheels for narrow car bodies.
It is often said to be a cute cars style, which might not be as appealing to some people.
Personally, i love the style and it gives them a bit more character for some reason.
It's like big faces on wheels or something like that, haha.
