While you're holding your breath waiting for that, look forward to cars taking some of the driving responsibility away from us.
Your car will be safer
The best way your car can help is to keep you and itself safe. New automobile features are designed to keep you from screwing up while driving.
Currently, cruise control keeps your car at a steady speed. In the near future, you can look forward to adaptive cruise control. Using microwave radar technology, your car will maintain speed, but also will adjust the speed to maintain a constant safe distance behind a slower car in front of you. Beach says, "You could get into the car and set the cruise control, and not have to change it until you stopped."
Your future vehicle may also include a collision-avoidance system. This space-age gizmo uses infrared to see farther ahead than your headlights. Then your car can warn you about cars, people or animals in the road ahead. Bambi and friends should appreciate that.
Some lucky northern drivers, such as Michigan resident Cole, are already trying out stability control. He explains, "It's almost impossible to spin out on an icy road. [This new technology] combines ABS and a gyro that locks on what's dead ahead. It assists the driver to keep the car stable." Which means you don't have to frantically fight with the steering wheel to come out of a 360 spin when crossing an icy bridge -- well, unless you're silly enough to want to do that.
Your car will be smarter
Not only will the car of the near future take over some of your work in keeping safe, the car will be smart enough to do other things as well. I am looking forward to the sensor that tells you when the tire air pressure is getting low. Why didn't someone think of that one sooner?
Some high-end cars are already featuring a Global Positioning System -- or GPS -- which assists the driver in navigating, just as it aids sailors around the world. With GPS, you can find where you are, find where you need to be, and most importantly, find how to get from one to the other. In other words, finding your way over the river and through the woods to grandma's new condo is going to be a breeze. Soon, cars will have a display which shows a map with your car's position, or the car may even give you directions as you drive.
Your auto will also help you back up. Small cameras and/or sensors will assist you in parallel parking and in detecting hidden objects behind you when in reverse. No more trying to interpret your pal's frantic hand-waving gestures as he tries to direct you away from a tree.
Last but not least, if you're in an accident, your car may end up testifying as a witness. Engineers are developing an airplane type of "black box" for cars, which will be able to recreate the conditions before an accident. Sounds like a good idea, until you find yourself squaring off against your own Honda in court about how fast you were going.
Your car will be more interactive
All these new gadgets could make driving more complicated, but the engineers of the world are working on that as well. Soon, you'll be using voice commands to control things -- in other words, you can tell the radio to turn on or off, or crank it up! This type of technology already exists in some cellular phones, and provides a good replacement for manual controls.
Truly interactive cars of the future will actually do things for you. For example, when your airbag deploys, your car would contact the local paramedics. Your GPS would be able to tell the emergency team where you are.
Heads-up display is a developing feature that can already be found in Buick Park Avenue, Pontiac Grand Prix and Pontiac Bonneville. Currently, it reproduces the information found on the dashboard -- such as miles per hour and turn signal info -- in a hologram-style display that "floats" above the front bumper, right in the driver's line of view. Its advantage is that the driver never has to look down or refocus on the dashboard.
Developed from military technology, heads-up display could become more useful when it provides additional information. For example, Beach mentions that this display could show an alert of an important page or e-mail. This would allow the driver to voice-activate the car's computer to read the message out loud.
Even the Internet that you are using right now is making its way into your car -- something that Beach refers to as "mobile multi-media." A limited Web browser combined with cellular technology and GPS will be able to interact with similarly computerized businesses as you drive by -- telling you about hours, sales and services. In a new town, you'll be able to learn about all the Irish pubs in the area and even make a reservation for dinner -- all while keeping your hands on the wheel and your eyes on the road.
Beach acknowledges these new gadgets need to be integrated well into the driving experience. He says, "You have to have a way for the driver to interact with these technologies and still drive."
Delphi Delco Electronics knows all about adapting new technologies into your vehicle. The company began back in 1936 as a radio manufacturer. At that time putting a radio in a car was a very expensive proposition -- and a radical idea. Folks thought a radio would distract the driver. At first, only daring and wealthy people were be-bopping to Glenn Miller. Like all good things, the technology trickled down to us middle-class mortals -- and who doesn't have a radio in their car now?
Giving "bullet-proof car" a new meaning
All these computer-run gizmos sound great, bringing the sci-fi of the movies into our driving lives. While you're fantasizing about purchasing a whiz-bang 2008 Beetle, keep in mind that real computers never run as smoothly as they do in the movies. I mean, would you trust the computer in front of you to drive your car?
"The real issue with cars is the [new products] have to be bulletproof," says Cole. No, not bulletproof like a rapper's SUV; rather he means these growing internal computers have to be failsafe. Think about it: If your work computer crashes, you call your internal tech support and go get a cup of coffee. Imagine your car "re-booting" while you're zipping down the Interstate! Whoa! If the computer in your car crashes, you'll be sitting on the side of the road ... or worse.
"The operating environment is very stringent. It's dirty and hot in [the engine]. You can't take a microprocessor directly from a manufacturer and throw it into a vehicle," explains Beach. "When you hit your brakes, they have to work." Safety concerns such as this explain some of the holdup in getting these new products into our vehicles.
In addition to the changes that you'll see and experience, cars' systems will be adapting as well to handle the new electrical requirements. Automobiles may shift from 12-volt electrical systems to 42-volt to handle the additional computers and electric motors. And it's quite likely your car of the future will need two batteries to keep up the juice. Just imagine waking up in the morning to find out your car won't start because it was browsing the Internet all night.
OK, the future of automobiles is around the corner. For a while longer, you have to keep paying attention to the road, but your car is getting smarter and more entertaining. In fact, you may want to keep an eye on your date around such a charming sedan. |
