|
|
January 6, 2016
By Bob O'Donnell
LAS VEGAS — It used to be so easy.
You opened the door with a physical key, put it into the ignition, turned the key, put the car into gear and drove away.
Now, you might use your phone, or smartwatch, or a key fob, or even a touch sensor to get in, push a button to start the engine, reconfigure the comfort controls (everything from heating/air conditioning to seat temperature, seat fans and seat position), select from an enormous range of entertainment options, connect your smartphone to the built-in WiFi, enter a location into a GPS, select from one of several engine performance settings, and then, finally, you go. That is, after you finish the phone call on your built-in Bluetooth audio system that inevitably seems to come.
Yes, the in-car experience has changed dramatically over the last few years — and that doesn’t include the enormous range of display options and controls that have come along with these new options.
It’s no wonder, then, there’s so many car-related announcements here at this year’s CES show. Car makers, major Tier-1 suppliers, third-party accessory makers, chip and component makers, software platform providers, application developers and more all have contributions to make and things to say about the impressive new innovations happening inside our automobiles.
Most are talking about future visions of self-driving cars, but the nuts and bolts of what can be done today, at least from a pure driving perspective, involve a number of key assisted driving and automatic safety features. Commonly termed ADAS (Advanced Driver Assistance Systems), these include things like lane departure warnings, automated braking, self-parking, advanced cruise controls and more.
But there’s a lot more going on in the car today than just driving, and that’s where some of the coolest near-term, in-car experience enhancements are going to be. In fact, arguably one of the biggest challenges for traditional car makers is that more and more of what consumers are starting to look for in cars doesn’t directly involve driving.
First, the visual experience when you get into today’s cars just screams future. Not only are we seeing lots of automakers taking a cue from Tesla, whose 17-inch screen in the Model S was light-years ahead of what came before it, but the quality of what’s being displayed is also improving dramatically.
As the CEO of Mercedes-Benz’ US-based R&D group recently said to me in a podcast interview, they’re going for a “cinematic experience inside the car.”
As a result, we see companies like Nvidia, Qualcomm and ARM driving for high-end quality 3-D graphics subsystems in cars. These are being used for entertainment options, mapping, video and visualizations of other cars around us, and much more.
There’s also a lot of work in creating the interface to control everything. This is where Apple and Google want to play, but many car vendors are reluctant to give control to them because the auto makers know how important it is to “own” the in-vehicle experience.
Ford, among other car companies, did announce it plans to support Google’s Android Auto and Apple’s CarPlay, but they’re being offered essentially as optional interfaces under the broader umbrella of Ford’s own Sync platform. Plus, the Google and Apple platforms can generally only deal with the infotainment elements of a car’s interface, not the HVAC controls, engine displays, and other key critical internal systems that they don’t have access to. As a result, the tech company software offerings can’t really provide a complete solution.
Moving forward, the challenge will be in determining how the car vendors navigate their way through the tech world, and figuring out how Silicon Valley, Detroit and Stuttgart, Germany’s auto mecca, can all work together, instead of against each other.
There are plenty of things that each side could learn from each other, and once they get past the perceived threats, there are likely to be some great developments that will come from these partnerships.
Ultimately, that’s how consumers will get the best in-car tech experience.
Follow USA TODAY tech columnist Bob O'Donnell @bobodtech
Here's a link to the original column: http://www.usatoday.com/story/tech/columnist/2016/01/06/navigating--car-tech-experience/78362370/ |
