From electric cars to concept cars becoming reality, here's how car tech is going to change in a big way
2015 looks set to be a watershed moment for motoring. This year more cars than ever rolled into the Las Vegas Convention Centre to take part in the world’s biggest tech show: CES.
In previous years, the motoring booths were a bit of a side show; full of tricked-out rides with sound systems spilling out of the boot and booth babes draped over the hoods. But this year the motoring hub looked a little smarter and a little bit techier.
We scoured the show's halls and braved the crowds to find out what to expect from your car in the years to come.
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Your driving will be assisted
Nvidia wants to make your next car the smartest thing on wheels since Kit. The graphics card company has spent the last few years building ultra light (on power and weight) but ultra powerful chips with the singular goal of bringing console-standard gaming to mobile phones and tablets. But now, it seems, Nvidia has figured out a new use for its tech: self-driving cars.
From Mazda to Mercedes, every big car manufacturer has an autonomous car prototype looping round its test track right now. And whether the car’s vision system is based on lasers (like Kinect) or cameras, an awful lot of image processing needs to be done to help the machine make sense of the world around it. That’s where Nvidia wants to step in. Its next chipset will take the shape of a “digital cockpit computer” called the Tegra Drive PX. “There’ll be more computing power inside your car than in any device you have today” explained Nvidia CEO Jen-Hsun Huang.
The idea is that the on-board computer will help you drive, spotting potential accidents, helping you park and even acting as a valet - parking your car for you while you go do the shopping. For example, in a demo we saw (albeit inside in a hall) a Tegra-equipped Audi was able to flag up pedestrians creeping out behind a car and spot the difference between a car pulling in to a parking spot and one pulling out. In fact, Nvidia has the tech to let the car go full “auto-pilot”, but while we wait for the lawmakers to make autonomous cars road-legal, assisted driving will have to be the next best thing.
Cars will join the cloud
Never one to scrimp on safety, Volvo debuted a new cloud-based system at CES that could help drivers look out for cyclists. The Swedish car company has been working with its neighbours Ericsson to work out a way to warn drivers if a cyclist is nearby. The concept relies on the GPS data collected by apps like Strava, a popular cycling and running app, and the GPS location of its own cars. The system analyses the two bits of information in the cloud and warns drivers on the windscreen if a bike is approaching on the left or the right. Cyclists would get an alert and warn cyclists of any cars via lights on an smart helmets.
Of course for the system to work, every car would need to be fitted with Volvo’s cloud tech, but it’s worth noting that the Swedish company do have a habit of giving its safety technology away (including the three-point seatbelt) for free.
The hard shoulder may be a thing of the past
Formula 1 cars send their engineers second-by-second updates on exactly how much stress each part of car is under, while the rest of us get a check engine light. But that all might be about to change. In 2016 Chevrolet will start to fit its top models with a host of sensors that will keep a watchful eye on their car’s battery, starter motor and fuel pump. The car will then send this data over 4G to Chevrolet’s servers where a smart algorithm will hunt for warning signs, notifying the owner /before/ a part fails to take their car for a service.
Better still, the system will learn over time as the algorithms feast on data, improving their diagnostic skills as it ages. As a bonus, the entire network of cars will teach Chevrolet precisely where the weak spots on its cars are.
Electric cars get more exciting
Beautiful though it is, the body of this car screams 1965 rather than 2015. Underneath the Shelby Daytona bodywork however is one of the most high-tech cars money can buy (and you’ll need a lot of money, at that). The Renovo Coupe is an electric supercar with a twist. On the one hand it’s quick. It will hit 60mph from a standstill in 3.4 seconds. But it’s also adaptable. Renovo is working on an app that will let owners’ customise their car’s power output. This means you can tune how much power is delivered to the wheels to make the car more or less aggressive at certain speeds.
But even more exciting is the idea that you could tailor this power output to mimic other cars. For instance you could train the Renovo Coupe to deliver its power like a Ford Fiesta, gently sipping the electricity from its battery or like Ford Mustang, producing lumps of energy at certain points.
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Concept cars get real
Mercedes rolled into CES this year with a showstopper, the F015. Looking like it drove straight to the show from the set of the next Star Trek film, this self-driving car doubles up as a lounge, complete with swivel armchairs and 6, yes 6 screens for the passengers. The concept even included windows that would switch between clear and tinted at the touch of a button.
As anyone who’s been to a motoring show before will tell you, mad concept cars like this are nothing new, but this is the first we’ve seen that’s technically achievable. That’s to say, most of the technology, from the automated driving to the curved displays could be implemented, if Mercedes wanted to splash the cash.
No more arguments over the car stereo
If you have kids then your car stereo has probably been commandeered by the little terrors. Thankfully Harman is here to help. The speaker company has engineered an in-car audio system that gives you localized sound. We took a seat in a Lexus at the show that Harman had kitted out to see if the system really worked. In the front we heard the results from a recent baseball game, and then after shuffling into the back seat we could hear the audio from a film.
Surprisingly, there’s very little interference from the two audio feeds. When the audio was split up like this it was noticeably either behind or in front of you, but that’s a small price to pay to never have to argue over the car radio again.