You are absolutely going to love the car of the future. And I am not just talking about the self-driving variety, though I must report that California recently approved the first test permits for Google, Audi and Mercedes-Benz to hit the road. As we saw at a recent event sponsored by Silicon Valley Bank (SVB), corporate venturing arms of the world’s leading automakers are teaming up with innovative startups to revolutionise our relationship with our cars, and top venture capitalists are hitting the pedal hard. Fasten your seatbelts – or the car will do it for you.
Such predictions of radical shifts have been coming since the turn of the 21st century, but now the technology and market demand are merging and edging more quickly out of the slow lane. Just like at home and work, driving is becoming a digital experience. Here are some of the things I learned about where we are headed:
From a technology standpoint, the real advantage of the connected car is not simply having access to the internet so you can take a Friday meeting while heading to Pebble Beach, or quiet the kids down with an interactive video. Connected means your car is talking to other vehicles and the world around you, and that should make driving more safe and efficient, not to mention fun.
During an “interactive voyage” from SVB’s Silicon Valley headquarters to the Wine Country in California, Inrix, a US-based company, demonstrated its traffic intelligence platform, which has been adopted in BMW’s new i3 electric vehicles. BMW iVentures attended the SVB event. Though its offering started as a traffic-monitoring system, Inrix has started providing real-time data on petrol prices, free parking and, of course, where to find the closest charging station. Inrix recently told Automotive News the company planned to debut road hazard information in 2015 models. For example, if the software “learns” from other cars that they are losing traction on the same patch of road, Inrix will alert the cars trailing a mile or so behind. In mid-September, Porsche paid $55m for an estimated 10% share of the company and gained a place on Inrix’s board.
On the same voyage a company called Automatic showed off a device that tracks an automobile’s metrics and connects to a smartphone via an app, enabling drivers to make changes to their driving habits that will lead to significant savings on fuel over time. Peloton is applying vehicle innovation to the enterprise with a device that connects “platoons” of large trucks so that they travel in close proximity without touching, and enhancing the efficiency of fleets.
The future of driving is not just about devices and voice commands. Gesture-recognition technology will allow drivers to control many of the vehicle’s infotainment and driving features akin to video gaming controls – a camera mounted on the steering wheel or dashboard watches for certain gestures. If you want to roll down the window, you simply swipe near the window.
With advanced communications, systems are being overhauled at every part of the driving process – self-starting, self-braking, self-parking, self-routing, self-diagnosis. The car will also be able to remind you to pick up the dry cleaning and then figure out if there is any available parking nearby. Much of this technology relies on an intricate system of on-board and remote cameras, sensors, radar and lidar– a detection system that works like radar, but uses light from a laser – to interact while you keep your hands on the wheel, at least for the time being.
Building real-time 3D mapping that enables real-time decisions based on that data requires huge computer power and data handling. Enter Qualcomm, which presented at the SVB event. It is powering next-generation automotive user experiences, including enhanced 3D navigation, high-definition video, multimedia streaming, natural voice recognition and, in the future, screen and content sharing, facial processing and gesture recognition. The company is also building wireless charging technology for vehicles, striving to have it placed strategically within the greater electrical vehicle infrastructure in places such as parking lots and intersections.
But here is where advances in automotive technology may have the greatest impact – manufacturing. Local Motors, an SVB client and small US-based automaker best known for its crowdsourced-designed Rally Fighter all-terrain vehicle, recently received a collective “wow” from the floor of the International Manufacturing Technology Show in Chicago.
The company’s Strati, Italian for layer, was printed in one piece over 44 hours using 3D printers. This is the first time 3D printing has been used to make a car, in this case an electric one – the powertrain, suspension, wiring and battery were not printed. The car is designed for neighborhood-only use – max speed 40 mph – and Local Motors expects to start selling the first production models in the next six months, priced between $18,000 and $30,000. The potential for rapid local manufacturing of complex machines certainly would change the world as we know it.