Hi-Tech Automobiles

Within the next few years cars that park themselves and have zero emissions will be standard.

Plain Words reports

When you are in the market for a new car you want to know certain key things about performance, fuel consumption, and safety. You might also want to know what gadgets are built in as standard - such as air-conditioning, sunroof, and central locking. But in the not-so-distant-future, you may be asking whether the car parks itself and whether it has zero emissions.

By 2012, cars will still have a steering wheel and most will still have a petrol engine. But electronics will have replaced the majority of mechanical systems. And it won't just be top-of-the-range vehicles; midrange models will also be buzzing with sensors, cameras, computer screens, and Wi-Fi connections.

This is not pie-in-the-sky. John Heywood, director of the Sloan Automotive Laboratory at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology recently stated: "I've been involved [with auto research] for more than 30 years, and there's more action and more promise for improvement now than I've ever seen."

Thilo Koslowski, vice-president in the automotive group of business-advisory firm Gartner G2, predicts that every new car will come with a computer-like screen mounted on the dash.

"It will display a navigation system that uses a global positioning satellite (GPS)," he explains, "[and there will be] onboard DVDs to provide directions, maps, and information on hotels, hospitals, and restaurants."

Koslowski adds that the monitor screen will also show you certain features within the car and connect to other devices such as PDAs and cell phones.

Alongside this, safety systems will move from passive protection, like airbags, to active systems that use radar and cameras to watch for danger. "We've put airbags just about every place you can," says John Weiner, a U.S. product-planning manager at Toyota. "Within the next five years, the car will use algorithms to anticipate hazards and intervene or warn the driver."

In-car Wi-Fi

What's more, nearly every car will have a Wi-Fi hookup that automatically provides the weather, news, and other information. "We're going to see hot spots in places like gas stations and restaurants," predicts Peter Wengert, a marketing manager for automotive products at Microsoft, which is pushing Windows Automotive as a software standard for handling the new communications functions in cars.

Unruly children in the backseat will no longer be a worry within the next 15 years - the average vehicle will be equipped with 10 to 15 cameras to help parents keep an eye on them. Cars may also have cameras fitted in the bumpers to "see" around corners as the driver pulls out onto a blind bend or backs out of a driveway.

Self-parking

Some steering manoeuvres won't even require a driver. Early this month, Toyota held a press conference to debut its 2004 Prius, which is configured with an automatic parking system called the "Intelligent Park Assist." Amazingly, this allows the vehicle to find its way into a parking space without anyone at the wheel. Toyota says this makes the Prius extremely efficient and helps prevent minor accidents.

The Prius is known as a "Hybrid Electric Vehicle." It has two engines, one petrol, one electric, which are designed to work with each other. This makes it very economical on fuel - it will run up to 800 miles on 10 gallons of petrol. The car is also far more environmentally friendly than the conventional vehicle.

Several manufacturers have gone one step further and are producing Zero Emission Vehicles that run on hydrogen fuel cells. These cars produce no exhaust except for water, which means they cause no air pollution. The only problem is hydrogen is more expensive to produce than petrol. Plus it is tricky to handle as it can explode with enormous force. But car manufacturers and governments on both sides of the Atlantic are looking to make fuel cell powered cars safer and more commercially viable.

Cars will also be programmable. "We have a vision that you can use electronics to let you choose what kind of vehicle you want to drive," says Chris Gerdes, a professor of mechanical engineering at Stanford University. "You can have it sporty or luxurious, as you choose."

Overload?

Critics, however, say some of the newest technologies have drawbacks. For one thing, they might hamper driver concentration - just how well can you concentrate in a car loaded with CD and video players, navigation systems, cell phones, and other gadgets? In-car Internet access is already coming to market in Japan and parts of Europe. But not everyone thinks it is a good idea: "We're technically capable of doing it today, [but] we truly believe it could be unsafe," says Michael Lembke, marketing director for Audi North America. "We took it out of our cars because we felt it was pushing the limits of driver distraction."

The question is: will cars ever drive themselves?

Not for a while yet, says Stanford's Chris Gerdes: "Fully automated driving is one of those things that since the 1940s has always been 15 years in the future. We never seem to get there. Replacing humans is a tremendously complex software problem."

Plain Words editorial
23 Sept 2003