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Vehicles of Tomorrow?
Human Factors Guy writes "We've seen here before car manufacturers putting more and more technology into cars, but what are the cars of tomorrow going to look like? Driver monitoring through head and eye tracking (which Volvo is already
implementing), Adaptive
Cruise Control systems, maybe even pedestrian recognition systems. With
cars becoming more like semi-intelligent robots every year, what do /. readers think will and won't make it?"
Unless there's some really radical new method of powering vehicals, I just don't see anything really new in the future for vehicals. We've had over 100 years of powered vehicals and they all pretty much follow the same pattern 4 wheels and some doors, slathering on new features or electronic controls is just a new way of marketing the same design over and over. Also speaking as a pedestrian I don't think "pedestrian recognition systems" is a good idea.
"It's so convenient to have a system where everyone is a criminal" - A. Hitler
has been around for over 100 years- it's called a bicycle
but they keep coming up with great improvements on the awesome machine.
Creationists are a lot like zombies. Slow, but powerful and numerous. And they all want to eat our brains.
I'm still waiting for foam to fill the car when you have an accident... Sandra is hot.
Improbablity drive powered space ships!
I like muppets.
This is for targeting...right?
Jon Bardin
Flying Cars.
Cars of tomorrow are going to be as disposible as cell phones.
Is that they'd get the turn signal thing fixed. Seems like 80% of the vehicles here in Seattle don't even have them.
what do /. readers think will and won't make it?
The crash test dummies won't..
I just wish that they will be powered by something, anything other than the internal combustion engine. It's time for something new. But then again, maybe you already knew that I feel that way.
Do not read this sig.
I think bigger, and more efficient batteries are on the horizon.
Unless it has zero pollution and runs without petrol I don't see anything innovative.
UNIX/Linux Consulting
I have used this a lot while driving on long trips and I totally love it. It takes a bit getting used to letting the car do the braking, but once you get used to it, you wonder what you ever did without it before.
So to answer your question, what will cars of the future look like, I would say the Infiniti FX35 is a good start...
D.O.U.O.S.V.A.V.V.M.
Welcome our... nah, it's been done.
a small truck powered by a diesel
love is just extroverted narcissism
Helicopter
Blaze a trail to the New World
I always thought being able to drive one of these landmaster vehicles would be cool.
Vintage computer adverts: http://www.vintageadbrowser.com/computers-and-software-ads
Duff Beer guzzling cars! w00t!
Automated freeway cruising.
Honestly, the technology exists right now to automatically drive my car along a freeway. I could probably set this up today with a few thousand dollars in hardware and a lot of code. Self-driving car projects are incredibly expensive and not yet fully reliable because they try to use them in the city. This is an extremely difficult environment to deal with.
But a freeway is perfect. All you need are cameras to watch the lines on the road, radar (or more cameras) to watch for other vehicles and objects in the road, servos to actuate the car's controls and a computer to run it all. I've actually thought about designing such a system for my RV, since long trips in that thing are very taxing. I'd still have to sit in the driver's seat and keep an eye on things, but that's infinitely less stressful than the driving itself.
But this will never be a mainstream product in our society. Too many lawyers and other disinterested parties (such as insurance companies). We'll have flying cars before you can go down and buy a self-freeway-driving module.
Last summer, I saw a guy talking on a cel phone while riding a bike. What call is so bloody important that you can't pull over or take it later?
-paul
Pistol caliber is like religion: everyone has their favourite, and theirs is the only right choice.
I want the car that drives itself to wherever you go, but computers will not be able to do that for a long time.
Driving requires dealing with the unexpected, which computers are bad at dealing with.
Washed out road, a small animal, a road sign that says "bump" or "frost heave", you name it.
It would be quite irritating to limit your head to measured movements. At how many degrees of a turn will the car stop responding? How can one defensively drive in relatively rigid posture?
For the love of God/Budda/Ra, no flying cars. Fools can't handle 2D, much less 3D.
I want the prices to go down. I want everything that is in a Cadillac now to be in a KIA price in the future. Maybe some new stuff in Cadillacs, but the stuff that is in the present I want a lot cheaper in the future. I think it will work that way.
Targeting systems just ruin the sport in it.
What fun is that?
I for one want to welcome our new semi-intelligent robot car overlords...
(still beats the less than intelligent polititans..
It is the year 2004, but where are the flying cars? (I was promised flying cars four years ago, dammit!)
... all those types of folks can do that safely if we get robot cars!
But we don't need flying cars, because we have the Internet. (and to really bastardize the comemrcials together) How many Libraries of Congress per second can your technology handle?
Personally, I'd prefer something akin to Minority Report, but so that I can escape the car if I want to (ie, none of this gov'mint lockdown crap). It would be awesome to not need to worry about where I'm driving or that idiot next to me who's eating cereal and reading the paper while driving
I'm rambling, so I'll stop here, before it gets ugly.
topreacher@signature.slashdot.org 1% rm -rf sig
once we're past the gimmicks we should see some improvements, but come on, that auto park option that Toyota presented last year feels like the latest update to curb feelers! I see cameras on the back bumper (already in some fancy cars) and cameras instead of rearview mirrors to be the most important; anything that doesn't force you to look away from the road will help.
CB$#%^&*!
free ipod and free gmail!
I think all the built-in safety mechanisms (limit speed of vehicle, prevent tailgaiting, automatic avoidance of pedestrian/objects) can and will only go so far. Not because of technological limitations, but
#1 - people enjoy driving and i believe people won't buy those kinds of vehicles if they dont' get the same kick out of driving them #2 - with more and more safety features being built into cards, car insurance will become less and less necessary. It is therefore in the interest of insurance companies for people to keep making accidents.
A million monkeys and this is the best sig they could come up with...
The cars of tomorrow will look like the cars of today, maybe a little dirtier.
What I want to know is what will the cras of the next decade look like.
500 dollar reward for tip(s) leading to the arrest of the person(s) who stole my sig.
Cars of tomorrow are going to be as disposible as cell phones.
Especially when there's no more fuel left to power them.
Isn't it some cadillacs that have IR vision augmentation for night driving?
I think that vision augmentation displayed on the windshield will / should become common. IR or maybe radar. Combine it with some processing power to highlight objects on an intercept vector.
It'll sell real well because everyone will feel like a jet pilot talking about intercept vectors.
Is that they need to fix the loose nut behind the wheel in most cars.
until they tighten restriction on getting nad maintaining a drivers license things will get worse.
it's a privilige people, not a right, and you most certianly do not have the right to endanger others because you get your jollies from driving recklessly.
i dont know about the future, but what I would like to see is vehicle controls (like cruise control and computer dvd games crap) regress.
;)
My mother just bought a new dodge durango, and it has way more features than she'll ever need. advanced engine control systems and emissions control systems are great, but i have too much crap in my car, and it's a 92 civic.
all of that stuff is just leading to driver distraction, and adding more stuff like cellphone speaker things just makes it worse. sure you dont need your hands when using a "handsfree" device, but you still need to look at the phone to see who's calling, answer the phone, and set up the device (volume, etc.). if it was available, i would choose a vehicle with a simplified, functional interface so i can concentrate on driving. one interface that would be very functional without being unnecessarily distracting would be voice control with either a HUD or voice feedback (with a customizable voiceprint, of course
... two to four doors, a steering wheel, throttle and brake pedals. I drive basically the same car as my old man and he drove basically the same car as his old man. How little things change.
Research shows that 67% of those who use the term "research shows", are just making shit up.
Need a ride? Walk to the closest community car and touch the handle. The door opens, seats/mirrors/radio/temperature adjusts to your preferences and away you go.
At your destination, you get out of the car. Your account is debited the appropriate fare and you... just... walk... away (and into the next car you need).
The article summary forgot emotive features
Thanks to the internet, we can now all die alone together! -SomeWoman
Isn't that the next big thing?
I can tell you one they won't do: they won't ever do anything to keep you from getting a speeding ticket. I.e., wtf does my car go faster than any legal speed limit in any state of the union? Do they imagine a time when I need to go that fast? If so, where are the laws that would allow for speeding? Why do cops never hide waiting for speeders going uphill?
/rant
Insurance companies, cities, states, local governments are running a racket with speeding tickets, and I can promise you this will never change no matter what technological advances there are. They're always going to allow drivers to break it and they're always going to profit from it....
Ok, ok, yes, I recently got a speeding ticket....
"All great things are simple & expressed in a single word: freedom, justice, honor, duty, mercy, hope." --Churchill
I don't know how much the car itself will change from a design sense (if that's what is meant by 'look like'), and I'm not sure how much the act of driving a car will change.
It does seem that there is a trend toward all these 'driver aid' tools, like GPS systems and ubiquitous Big Brother-like organizations that can control your car and track you. I do think, therefore, that the act of driving is going to be considerably less free, as an experience.
The real change will be under the hood, as Peak Oil passes, and the petroleum supplies begin to dwindle rather than grow (there are currently zero large oil fields set to come online in 2008, and only one in 2007, so it might be here faster than we think). I'd expect, therefore, that cars will become a luxury commodity once again, as the cost of powering them starts to become prohibitively expensive.
As this happens, there will likely be another trend in the 2010s similar to the 1980s, when there was a premium placed on economy, rather than size, because if the price of gas balloons in the 2010s to something more like $5-$7 a gallon, as some in the oil industry predict, it means saving a 10 MPG increase in economy can make a dig difference to the TCO of an automobile.
gameDB
If I could make one small request to the car making industry, it would be: Please do not dumb down driving.
Driving is a learned exercise that requires experience to become good at. The introduction of things like traction control, and anti-lock braking systems have caused much of the driving public to ignore time-tested techniques for maintaining control over a vehicle.
Case in point: A cousin of mine was recently endowed with a driver's license. However, nobody thought it necessary to tell him how in certain vehicles under certain conditions, pumping the brake pedal is necessary to stop. They assumed anything he drove would have anti-lock brakes.
Things like smart cruise control are going to make us become complacent about things like safe following distances and paying attention to the conditions ahead of the vehicle you are following.
Until we're ready to turn over 100% control to the robots (which shouldn't happen for a very long time), please make vehicles safer by encouraging driver experience, not by doing things for him/her.
I'd like to see some agreement from the car manufacturers and the soft drink industry to make some standardized cup sizes so that all drink cups are tapered to the same sizes, and 20oz bottles and 32oz bottles will all fit and not wobble.
-- If god wanted me to have a sig, he'd have given me a sense of humor.
Freedom, freewill, personal rights... all out the window. If the car doesn't want you to drive to the gangster HQ, it won't let you.
What a wonderful world it will be. And of course, if you speed, or run a light, it will lock the doors and drive you directly to the police station.
Yeah, the future is bright..and to think, I'm an optimist.
-Patrick
"They never stop thinking about new ways to harm our country and our people, and neither do we."
One of my cars is a 1981. People are very surprised when they see that it has power windows, door locks, mirrors, etc., and that it has A/C. One person who rode in my car was surprised that it had seat belts!! People think that the world didn't have that kind of technology 25 years ago. I'm only 28 years old, but I'm old enough to know that the auto industry has been ripping people off for at least that long.
...just my 2 gil.
I think the largest obstacle to getting more advanced daily transportation (flying cars, etc) is the *human* element.
We need to take *out* the human element in *most* of the flight controls and make it so that a person gets in the vehicle, says where they want to go, or types it in, and the vehicle does pretty much everything else.
We need to build these flying or driving cars to be so smart that in the event of an emergency, they have built-in, completely separate, autonomous controls to shut or bring the vehicle to a *safe* stop. Barring a completely unforeseen disaster, the vehicles would almost maintain themselves, their electronics and controls as well as their operation.
Much like computers today, they do what we *tell* them to do, right or wrong. But that's the way I see it, humans (on average and without special training) aren't likely to handle the complexities of stable, controlled flight without hurting themselves or those around them either in training or in the daily routine of getting in a flying car and going to work.
Now, if you want something revolutionary, get the avionics together and deliver a plane that can be used like a car.
Now, that isn't ready yet-but when it is, well that _is_ revolutionary.
What I'd like to see in the vehicles of tomorrow are better drivers.
Speak truth to power.
... improvements in Braking technology are pretty damn cool.
I have antilocks, which definitely saved the life of a pedestrian last Saturday, and may have saved me and/or other people involved in an accident. A drunk/insane/distracted driver in an Acura pulled a U-turn immediately in front of an '87 Suburban that was going around 45 mph. The Suburban hit the Acura headon, and proceeded to fly half-airborn into my lane (I was two lengths behind and a lane to the left). To avoid the flying SUV and the other wreckage that was rapidly filling the street in an uncontrolled way, I braked hard and swerved, ending up on the sidewalk, just a few feet from a panicking pedestrian.
This was a situation of millisecond tolerances. I think I'm pretty good with performance driving -- I know how to handle sharp braking. But there's no way I could have maintained control given all the factors. That ABS saved that pedestrian, and prevented me from slamming into an evolving collision situation.
So maybe future developments will include sonar controls on cars to prevent them from enabling U-turns into rapidly moving targets. Those'd have to be pretty intelligent, though, since there're lots of situations where you want to break into rapid moving traffic with reasonably narrow gaps. It's also have to be carefully calibrated to prevent problems on narrow mountain roads where (to the sonar at least) it may appear like cliff faces are approaching at 50mph on those inside curves...
Eloi, Eloi, lema sabachtani?
www.fogbound.net
It's what I drive. FYI it lacks the following:
Anti-lock brakes
Air bags
Crumple zones
emmissions controls (well, beyond a o2 sensor anyway)
5 mph bumpers
fuel injection
What it DOES have is the following:
300 RWD HP
Manual Transmission
Limited Production
Triple Weber Carbs (a conversion from the original dual Strombergs)
Straight pipes
LOTS of sex appeal
IMO this is what the world needs more of, loud fast *sexy* cars. Down with Toyota Echos!
(note, for those of you who do not get this post, I do drive this car in reality, but the post is for humor)
So rise up, all ye lost ones, as one, we'll claw the clouds.
They say if you want a Jaguar you need to purchase two so you always have one thats NOT in the shop.... If linux/open source fails us, and car manufacturers turn to a windows os in the future.......You will need a car to drive while the other one displays the BSD....
With cars becoming more like semi-intelligent robots every year
Yeah man! I can't wait to see all the programming errors in these new cars!
Everytime someone introduces new technologies new problems and bugs are introduced also. The rear right passenger electric window in my car fails to open when the temperature outside goes over 90F. The mechanic spent an hour diagnosing the problem and couldn't find a cause, but he can replace the switch & window motor for $300. My god!
Give me a classic mustang, add a catalytic converter and some pollution controls, and then a few add-ons which don't affect the Mustang's performance: Stereo, nice speakers, and I'll be satisfied.
94% of Repubs and 21% of Dems voted to renew the Patriot Act
Can't you even manage a drive-by shooting without an aimbot?
I would like to see improvements in communication systems, and enforcement. Specifically, car-to-car CB-like communication so I can tell newbies they are not supposed to lounge in the fast lane, go ahead at a multi-way stop, thank someone for signaling, etc.
Enforcement: how many times have I wished I could sic a state trooper on some ass that pops into the narrow space between me and the guy ahead of me without any warning. Maybe some trusted video recording system could be used to report that kind of stuff.
Tsunami -- You can't bring a good wave down!
They all said we would have flying cars by now.
They all said we would have strap on rocket packs.
They all said we would be living on the Moon and Mars.
Where are they all now?
THEY'RE ALL DEAD!
--- Actually, I would be happy with a car that you fill up with water about once a month from the tap outside with a garden hose. I want it in a cool new lightweight enclosed tandem vehicle that costs about a hundred a month to own.
Hey, if we gonna dream, why not something thats cutting edge technology thats almost free?
They did all this with computers, right? Years ago they were 25 MHz with floppies and cost thousands of $$$. Now they are running gigahertz speeds with terrabyte hard drives and cost a fraction of what they used to.
Give us personal transports that are like our computers.
Roger Born
writing.borngraphics.com
"These are my principles. If you don't like them, I have others."
First they'll be really really good cruise controls with GPS maps on your display.
Then they'll introduce a semi-autonomous service with a high-priced car. ("The New Lexus AAA Really Will Drive You!")
Then they will designate lanes for it.
Then they will mandate it, and people will only drive cars on race tracks.
Damn.
"/Dread"
Proper starting. Automobile engines are started all wrong. Cranking, compression, fuel, and spark all start at the same time. Oil pressure comes later. As a result, half of engine wear occurs during start. Many big engines (locomotives, marine diesels, some big tractors) are started properly - oil pressure first, then a few turns with compression released to oil up the cylinders, and finally combustion starts. Wear is much reduced.
Once 42-volt electrical systems become popular, and valve control goes electrical, we may see electric booster oil pumps and valve actuators. Once you can crank the engine with compression off and oil pressure up, you need a much smaller starting motor. The starting motor and alternator can then be combined.
Clearly the vehicles of tomorrow will be flying robots, as shown in Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow.
Driver side DVD system and built in kegerator.
--Damn shame too.
"All I can tell the "lesser of two evils" folks is that if they keep voting for evil, they'll keep getting evil."-Lp.org
...As we have seen with computers, a lot of components advance quickly but there are always a few parts that seem to lag behind the rest (HD's for example) and this is true with cars as well. The Battery has remained relativily unchanged over the years. Still the roughly the same size with the same output in power. And sure once we get the vehicle running, the altinator should kick in and power everything, but how many of us turn everything electronic off before we turn the car off? I'm hoping with the advances in and greater uses of technology we will see some break throughs in batteries as well. I think that is still an area that needs improvement, in cars, laptops, cell phones...all that portable gear we carry has to get power somewhere.
Sig? No thanks, I don't smoke.
A lot of progress has been made on this over the past couple of decades, and we have a couple more decades of progress to go before it's safe enough to use in the real world, but as soon as an autopilot is invented that drives better than the average human (especially under emergency conditions), there will be a large insurance break for using it. Shortly after this it will become the norm.
My money's on methanol or methane, as both can be stored as liquids (methanol more easily), and methanol can be burned in a conventional engine with a bit of tweaking (making the switch from internal combustion to electric engines much more graceful). You even have interesting hybrid options available, like an electric car with a gas turbine burning methane (or propane, which you can fill up with at gas stations now, making the switchover to _methane_ easier). Methane and methanol can both be synthesized directly from water, CO2, and electricity, meaning that they're suitable fuels for an electric vehicle infrastructure after fossil fuel supplies of them run out (and after we need more than we can get by reclaiming biological waste). We have lots of experience with moving hydrocarbon gases and volatile liquids around, so the transport infrastructure's already here. Methane and methanol have nowhere *near* the storage and handling problems hydrogen has.
It'll be interesting to see when the first point happens (I think it's pretty inevitable that it's going to). A methanol (or a methane) fuel system might or might not happen. If compact energy storage and vehicle efficiency get good enough, a direct electric scheme might work. However, most non-chemical methods of electric storage don't have high enough theoretical densities (even with nanotube-reinforced flywheels and induction rings), and a purely electric vehicle infrastructure is a lot harder to phase in gracefully. Alternatively, we might just keep improving our ability to harvest lower-grade and less-accessible hydrocarbon deposits, and push the fossil fuel problem far enough off that by the time the crunch hits, technology will be different enough to drastically alter the space of possible solutions.
Definitely interesting times ahead.
...is it to spell the word 'vehicle' correctly, especially when it's in the title of the story? Hmm?
Why would you need to have pedestrian recognition systems?
Unfortunately, emission standards are only going to get more strict in the coming years so unless the clean air technologies in diesels can keep up, we may not see many options on the market.
I'd like to see cars sold with optional hydraulics (or "bags" if the car design doesnt allow for hydros) with computer-assisted controls and programmable activation sequences.
Automatic point assignment.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Here's an idea I had a couple years ago:
Put a liquid crystal display coating over the windshield that can selectively darken specific parts of it. Have a sensor outside the car facing forward that notes any super bright light sources like the sun or headlights at night. It also tracks where the face of the driver is and, if it determines a glare situation is occurring, does the geometry to find out exactly what part of the windshield is between their head and the light source and applies a tint at that one place. The person could still see that the light source was present, but it wouldn't blind them.
Try driving west in the evening as the sun is setting, and something like this starts to look pretty good.
Even larger cupholders.
All of this "intelligent" car crap is possible, but in the U.S. is basically illegal. Powered car systems are required to default to operator control in all situations. This is ostensibly to ensure that these futuristic systems do not cause any damage. In truth, the purpose of the automobile in modern U.S. society is not as a transportation device. Transportation was faster and cheaper in Los Angeles BEFORE the invention of the automobile. This is probably true of most very large cities. Of course smaller cities without established public transportation benefit from the automobile. Nevertheless, it is absolutely imperative for the United States government to keep the responsibility of the car in the hands of the driver in order to maintain the voluntary I.D. system represented by the Driver's License. In order to protect the vested interests, and to maintain the loop-hole that allows the government "search and seizure rights" that circumbent the Bill of Rights it is very unlikely that I will be able to get in a Johnny Cab anytime soon. And that sucks.
I wish better instrumentation became ubiquitous. Every car should have an instantaneous and average MPG indication, tire pressure indicators (and self-inflators), oil pressure, and so forth. This would help improve fuel efficiency for the country, and help reduce fuel and maintenance costs for individuals.
Sorry, I should have qualified that better. I mean zero harmful engine emissions.
UNIX/Linux Consulting
-Better Fuel Economy
-Better sound systems
-Headlights that are bright but dont blind oncoming traffic
-Can run past 100,000 miles without major repairs
-Less rusting, even on newer cars
-And finally, the ability to work on them without the need for 3 different diagnostic machines that cost 10 grand each!
How well do the lane sensors work when you throw some snow on the road?
Dogma - "let's just say we'd like to avoid any empirical entanglements."
they promised me flying rocket cars in 1950s dangit!
where are my flying rocket cars!
i was promised flying rocket cars!
@#!*?#!
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
sorry, make that ensure
i hate laptop keyboards
The addage "Dont stare at the cliff you dont want to hit" now applies even more...
On a serious note, what does this mean for billboards and similar advertising?
What I wish is that there was a remote controlled turn signal. Often I know when a guy is going to turn or cut in front of people - like the guy in the other lane going toward the merge - I know you know you have to come over, why not make it official instead of "pretending" you don't know about the looming merge point?
I would greatly enjoy letting everyone around know when a person is going to actually turn, since they don't seem fit to.
Even better of course would be where I could force them to turn after I activate their turn signal, but that may be a step too far...
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Just hack the two together and get a lovely speed burst aiming straight for the pedestrian. ...
"Kit, what are you doing?!"
I wish I could set my volume control to a certain level and then it would adjust if for example I rolled my window down, or had the AC fan on high.
The Honda Goldwing (motorcycle) has it and I always wondered why cars never did.
...it's the twenty-first century and I still don't have my flying car and I still don't have my rocket belt.
Why bother asking what the vehicles of the future are going to look like; we still don't have the vehicles of yesterday's future!
Honestly I wouldn't want to trust my life at high speeds to a piece of hardware that has a possibility of failure.
Blimps. Wave of the future. It's a whole new paradigm!
To recognize the lawyers so you can run them all down first!!!
My guesses for features (most are already available in higher end cars today)
* More GPS enabled cars
* Regular power plugs instead of cigarette lighters
* Bluetooth or other wireless capability for cellphones to interact with the speakers
* HUDs for showing information from GPS/Cellphone/stereo/MPH etc
* IR-enhanced night driving
* Hybrid electiric engines. Many cars coming out in the next few years from all sorts of brands. Toyota, Ford, Nissian, Lexus just off the top of my head.
It's funny how we can talk about the technology of tomorrow when you still have to pay extra to get power windows and locks in cars today.
I'm not anti-car, but decided long ago to live near where I work, and haven't owned a car in ten years.
I'm now $60K US richer than I would have been, calmer, and twenty-five pounds lighter.
That's advanced enough for me...
You can't talk about Wikipedia's flaws on Wikipedia
Think about this for a second...
No personal cars allowed on the street in City A
What you do get though, is that transportation is free/cheap on a per person basis. If you need to transport freight, its on a per pound basis.
What the city would do is to automate or control all of the transportation from a central system. Wether the transportation is busses, subways, taxis , a tube or something that flys, is up to the implementation.
until all the details are worked out, most people can drive to parking hubs, and then take the transportation from there. then the city can spread the cost of the program amongst everyone.
If you don't like the idea of a city running it, then replace by a private company or organization. It could be a plus to draw employee's or residents or even tourists...
This is completely false. This is not a sig.
What will and won't make it? Drivers won't - we'll all become passengers. No more "Drivers Wanted." It's people that will become obsolete if we ever perfect the safe-driving car.
Snazzier than a Three-Piece Suit: http://kf.rainydaycommunications.net/
The automobiles of the future will look like trees, because, based on how little road building is taking place, they won't be able to move anyway. So they may as well look good sitting there.
cars becoming more like semi-intelligent robots
I hope the trend leads to cars with a survival instinct.
I'm not interrested in letting the car drive itself (or be driven by remote control), but a car that won't let you tailgate, or drive fast in slippery road conditions would be a great step up.
If the idiots on the road don't have a survival instinct, their cars should.
You can't take the sky from me...
because my double decker 3-foot erector set wing just isn't big enough sometimes
add to that list:
brighter neon
louder steros
larger exhaust pipes
louder exhaust pipes
a wider range of stickers
bigger uglier rims... spinners and lights were a good start, but how about embedded video screens, or ultrashiny chrome that blinds other drivers?
more places to stick useless video screens (see above)
brighter, more obnoxious colors
larger body kits, with more of that panel-gap appearance that looks so good
did i miss anything?
May you be touched by His Noodly Appendage. RAmen.
I've got your dangly bit right here bub.
All the direct driving functions will be through mechanical control, e.g. speed, direction, and breaking. All the other functions through voice control to avoid distraction, e.g. passenger temperature, music, lighting, map info requests, road considtions, etc.
Blue screens.
The biggest change I can imagine is when drive-by-wire will be fully implemented. This means among other things that steering will no longer will be done mechanically. This will change the interior or cars dramatically, see here and here.
Quite honestly, this needs to be an all or nothing thing in my estimation.
A road full of manually-operated, potentially erratic drivers and automated machines is a recipe for badness. The first time some bonehead cuts you off when the computer is driving or any of a bunch of stuff just seems like it's gonna be trouble.
I'm sure people can point to all sorts of examples of people claiming it will work (and they may be right). To me it just seems like pressing your luck.
Lost at C:>. Found at C.
I JUST CANT WAIT untill insurance companies offer reduced fees to drivers who are willing to allow various sensors and tracking devices to be attached to a black box (that ofcourse the insurance company will be monitoring) ... I can see it now... " Sir we noticed you took your eyes off the street for more than 5 seconds on 27 ocasions last month so we are going to have to raise your premium by XX dollars."... "in addition to that the GPS locator has indicated you have been spending alot of time in hi risk areas, you will have to stop driving that route or I am afraid we will have to drop your coverage."
I know it's an old joke. But if they did, how long before there would be no one left alive to drive them?
"Can there be a Klein bottle that is an efficient and effective beer pitcher?"
There's this problem called "over-engineering" and that's what's going on here. How many gadgets do we really need to get us from point A to point B? I drive a 91 honda civic with no power windows, locks, or power steering or any other nonsense other than a stereo, and air conditioning and frankly I never find myself sitting there driving and thinking "gee, I really wish this car could do X Y and Z". Never.
Each tire has its own motor and own steering. A computer translates steering instructions into what angle to place each tire at. Parallel parking is done by going parallel to the desired spot, turning all wheels 90 degrees, and going in. The car can park itself.
This allows a 10' driveway to service a garage whose door is perpendicular to the street. It lets you pack more cars into parking lots.
See here
I thought for a second about how cool it would be to have my car turn wherever I looked, until I realized that the girls who like to jog around where I live would make this a dangerous technology.
Synergy is your friend
The "In-Lap Hot Coffee Dispenser"
Every driver gets a moron gun. When someone cuts you off, is speeding like a maniac etc. you "tag" their car with a moron bullet. If they get enough of them it's a ticket...
Introducing Microsoft Vacuum 1.0 The first Microsoft product that doesn't suck.
We should be going back to less ( or no ) computer controls, and fewer 'smart cars'.
Return the car back to its owner.. so they can fix them on their own, and not be tracked everytime they turn a corner..
Its all way out of hand.
---- Booth was a patriot ----
I think that the legal problems of who is liable after a crash will need to be worked out before acceptance of automated driving beyond cruise control technology.
I can envision a driver falling asleep or is otherwise not paying attention, the technology fails, and there's a crash. Perhaps a piece of paper blows up and covers the sensors, they get iced over, or just fail.
Who's to blame, that is, whose pockets will be targeted? If it's the manufacturers then IMHO you won't see this technology anytime soon.
Nate
The private automobile and the infrastructure needed to support house and maintain it is already a climax technology and all the new gadgets and alternative energy sources aren't going to make any difference in the long run. The true future of transportation is feet. This of course is after the collapse of western civilization which is already groaning under it's own weight.... but seriously... The near(er) future in urban areas should be mass transport not individual automobiles. In a densly populated area such as a city where most of the vehicles are individual automobiles are an absurdity. Do a small spacial dislocation exercise and hover over a large city, say Houston, or L.A. or Paris or Hamburg and look down at the roads and vehicles and the absurd waste of materials time and energy and on and on. Mostly for people to move around for very little reason while moving tons of material around, using huge amounts of energy to move one or two people and and an occasional bag of groceries. And then remember that the raw material for fueling and more importantly building the vehicles is in increasingly short supply. Now you should realize that all the new tech being tucked into automobiles is there for marketing and for nothing else. A sane society would be designing transportation systems not building more of the same krap with extra toy value. So go and buy your way cool toys but don't fool yourself into thinking that is anything more than that. Any utility gained by your new features is of marginal significance. You may as well by spinny rims...
just what the subject says
can't believe noone else has said it yet
May you be touched by His Noodly Appendage. RAmen.
Vancouver, BC
In the last howevermany years, every "car of the future" article in Pop(Sci|Mechanics) that I've seen features the stuff from Moller International out near Sacramento.
Before the masses get together and complain about the troubles of 3 dimensions vs. 2 when driving, take a look. I've seen the prototypes in action and as far as innovation goes on this topic, it's the most out there and concrete thing I've seen going on for this subject.
Check it out - http://www.moller.com/
I've always thought that it's really annoying when its just raining a little and I have to keep turning the wiper off and then on again.
Can't windshield wipers be automatic?
Although maybe I'm just lazy
I want my flying car, damn it. I was promised a "nucular" flying car.
Popular mechanics had pictures and everything.
MSBPodcast.com The opinions expressed here are my own. If you don't like 'em... Think up your own stuff.
Any technology that takes away from that pleasure will see more resistance in the market than something that makes your driving cleaner and cheaper. I think hybrid or trybrid (hydrogen, power plug charge, solar cells) running on biodiesel will have more chance to take the market than some computerized taxi.
A camera that automatically takes pictures of people's faces as you run them over with your Hummer.
Although there really isn't much in place right now for it, a HUD for low-visibility conditions would save quite a few lives.
This plan would be quite effective when driving in heavy snow, fog, or rain. I thought about this while driving through a blizzard and seeing traffic going down a 3-land highway with a 70 mph speed limit doing 25 running single-file in order to avoid driving off the side of the road. A HUD that could display the road's lines would make the risk of driving off the side of the road much less frequent in poor weather. Something like this combined with a warning buzzer or beeper would also wake drivers up if they fell asleep behind the wheel, much like a ridged surface on the side of the road does. Furthermore, it could act as a reminder to signal. If the driver crosses a line without a turn signal on, they would hear a noise, thereby reminding them that they forgot to signal a turn.
The biggest drawbacks to this idea are a lack of infrastructure (spotting lines beneath snow) and cost. We can solve the first problem with durable sensors embedded in the pavement. However, this would increase the magnitude of the second problem, cost.
I know it's just an extra gadget on an already bloated vehicle, and wouldn't revolutionize the vehicle as we know it. However, it could save as many lives as airbags if properly implemented.
This is a little beyond a single industry, but I could see the cost being distributed among the automotive industry ("safety feature" would sell more cars), insurance (discounted rates where the insurance company keeps a cut of the savings), and consumers (safety FOR THE KIDS). Also, decreased traffic from some kinds of accidents would improve care in hospitals (less wait time to see a doctor).
This may be unnecessarily wishful thinking, but something to consider nonetheless.
Velomobiles are the future!
http://www.velomobiel.nl/
My number one concern for "futuristic cars"? I'd like to be able to take my vehicle in for a tune-up (or any task requiring they disconnect the battery) and not have my radio's clock and station settings wiped out. Come on! It's a $0.05 wafer battery!
And a cup-holder deeper than 1 inch and strong enough to hold more than an empty Coke can. Yes, I know this is an American thing. No, I don't necessarily need to have a QT Giant Gulp survive a 70 mph hairpin turn at 2 lateral G's, but I can't even get a medium drink from McD's to stay up. BTW: I will never buy a car with those wimpy pop-out pincers designed to hold a dixie-cup with one shot of water. I don't need 18 billion places for coins, PDA's, phones, cigs, eyeliners, and gloves. I need ONE place to but a damn drink.
The third thing? Oh yea, an electrical system that turns off after X minutes to protect against dead-battery-after-I've-been-at-the-game-all-day syndrome. Come on! It's a $0.30 current monitor!
CONSPIRICY THEORIES:
This one gang kept wanting me to join cause I'm pretty good with a bo staff.
Will be one of these puppies.
Fsck all you tree-huggers.
Religion is for people afraid of going to hell.
It's probably worth mentioning again, as we discuss smarter cars, that insurance companies are declaring a car "totaled" more quickly these days, even with relatively minor structural damage, because the cost of replacing all of these electronic gizmos after an accident is adding signficantly to the typical repair cost. Reference, for example: http://csmonitor.com/2004/0419/p13s02-wmgn.html
So as we contemplate even smarter cars with even more electronics installed, even relatively minor accidents might result in a car being declared "totaled" and thereby increase insurance costs overall. Ironically, it may not be the purchase cost of the electronics that eventually constrains the smart-car market (particularly since smart electronics seem to get cheaper all the time), but rather the insurance considerations instead!
I hope that after I die the one word people use to describe me is "resurrected."
"My automatic breaking system failed"
"My distance detention system was faulty"
"The Xtreme Cruise Control X-5000 messed up"
While you might be able to proove/disprove such claims, I can see the suits now. I also worry about people thinking it's ok to be LESS attentive (or worse, sober) because their car will protect them, and other drivers, from their own poor driving.
I'm very much a believer that you should be doing one thing while you in a car - driving; which means 2 hands on the wheel unless you're shifting, and watching the road and other cars - NOT having a business meeting on a cell phone, combing your hair, having dinner, watching a DVD, etc. etc. Cars a big, powerful, fast machines that require full operator attention, at all times, period. [Ok, unless parked, while you're in the backseat with your gf/bf]
I think too many gadgets of convienence will only make driving less safe as drivers become lazier and generally less attentive, if not less skilled.
'The unexamined life is not worth living' - Socrates
Actually, these incremental increases in the "intelligence" of our machines seem much more likely than a sudden leap to sentience (think SkyNet).
AND, much easier to integrate into our daily lives.
AND, less painful.
If you forget about the future, the future will forget about you.
This kind of echoes one of the previous posts about powering with anything but the internal combustion engine: Some years back, there was a company called Rosen Motors that developed a powertrain that was all-electric, with the juice coming from a jet turbine under the hood. To start the thing, there was a flywheel that stored a significant enough electrical charge to start the turbine in the morning. The flywheel would spin, unattended for a couple days before needing to be spun back up again. The idea was cool but never took off. I have a feeling that it was because when you reduce a powertrain to four moving parts, you pretty much put mechanics and dealer service shops out of business. Nevermind that the system got something like 120 MPG.
I happened to overhear a guy trying to use his OnStar system when his nice custom diesel truck wouldn't start. It sucked. The voice recognition system they've got is a real stinker. This could be improved a lot.
I saw something on television (like SciAmFrontiers or something like that) about a capsule car idea. The gist of it was that you had a little cube-ish looking car with a steering wheel and a seat and kind of a lounge area in back. You'd drive to a local "station" where your capsule would be taken over by wireless command to fit into a pod of similar capsules and then the whole pod would leave at the same time, keeping about 2-3 feet between capsules, kind of like a convoy. The pod would end up at the destination station where you'd take over driving from there. The idea was to free the driver from the long, middle, highway portion of a lengthy commute and allow the person to do other stuff for that time. It's a little like the cars in Minority Report.
Have cars like the ones in Minority Report!
.. pa-ra-bo-la, pa-ra-bo-la, 2 pi R, 2 pi R, where's your latus rectum, where's your latus rectum, 2 pi R
The idea is to get rid of the personal repulsion properties of the drivers.
What about implementing separation techniques (much like IFR flying) that would permit vehicles, first in specialty lanes and then later on the road at alrge, to operate safely at predetermined distances.
Together with reversible-direction lanes, we could save many of the billions of hours (how many human lifetimes is that) wasted sitting in traffic each year.
Owner privacy and fuel economy seem to become two of the most important factors for buyers of new cars. As long as car intelligence helps to protect owner privacy it will be a welcome technology, if it does not it will be doomed to fail.
here
Well, maybe not that, but if you move to Japan you can have a Prius that parks itself. Thought you said "the city" would be too hard? Looks like were closer to that than "freeway cruising". Before you can do that one you'll need the cars to communicate, and you'll have to *mandate* that one! Nope, not optional, just throw all those old rusty 65 corvetts and 57 chevys away!
No need to signal.
Why should you exert yourself?
I can read your mind.
--Pamela Menter
What surprises me is that the standard of starting the motor is still by turning a key. I thought a Star Ship Enterprise-like start button would have become available by now.
Let me know if I missed it. Plus, read my book on car culture.
Stephan
http://stephan.sugarmotor.org
Well personally I wonder if we will continue to be the travelling fools that we are today, in say a hundred years. With concerns over Energy, Raw Materials and pollution, I would predict that within 50 years travel as we know it will greatly change, and maybe nearly all together stop on a widescale. Why? It's simple with advancements in virtual reality, online shopping, and whatnot, it is already nearly possible to stay at home and take care of all your needs. You can work from home. You can shop from home. Heck you can even date from home. Not to mention that we are getting closer and closer to all around health-care from home items like personal health scanners. I jokingly said Teleportation in the subject, but with advancements in particle transferrence, and quantium computing, it just might be possible within the next century or so. Don't quote me on that one of course. Another idea from yesteryear that I also liked was the esculators that would pretty much take you anywhere in town you wanted to go. So if you ask me, in 50-100 years transportation will be relegated to the actual transporting of raw materials and goods, not people on the mass scale that it is today. But then again, no one asked me.
Our expensive computerized cars can only go some 20mph. Quite a few of us would have expected at least 60-150mph in the city to be possible by 2004.
Try calculating the average speed of your car travel. Go to some web mapping engine, put in home address and another, get miles and driving time, calculate miles/hr.
I see cars becoming semi-accursed, slow, expensive, wasteful, polluting, dangerous, and useless money black holes.
Perhaps becoming increasingly smaller - while we figure out some way to replace it.
We're becoming quite semi-intelligent, for not coming up with a less pathetic way to get around - MUCH quicker.
Eveyone driving a one-ton $10,000 90sqft unreliable obsolete closed-source no-protocol non-networked vehicle ain't never gonna do it.
Perhaps PRT, or pneumatic tubes , or electric bicycles.
Whatever, there's dozens of better options.
-------------
Build your own energy sources from scratch. http://otherpower.com/
Tomorrow's cars will be the same cars as today's cars. They'll just put in a few more gadets so you'll think you have to have a new one.
Realistically, your next car should be your feet or a bicycle. Walk to get your groceries. Bike to work. Get fitter. Live longer. Pollute less. Get big things delivered. Talk to your neighbours. Smile at strangers.
---
ECHELON is a government program to find words like bomb, jihad, plutonium, assassinate, and anarchy.
If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
Is this to open the window? I thought electric windows were already "unroll by wire"? Is it possible that we will see overly obfuscated interfaces in the future as well??
http://www.washedashore.com/projects/dymax/ and I think it's about time somebody put it into production.
My personal wish is for a cruise control that's intelligent enough to recognize that it has to apply more gas to the engine when going uphill, rather than my current one that first slows down by 10 mph, then finally tries to speed back up.
Have you read my blog lately?
I think the article you are referring to was "New Ford Exorbitant comes with spare Explorer".
But I could be wrong...that is the article I immediately thought of. I can't link to it because I don't have an Onion subscription and it's an old article.
Is they are $2.00 a share. (ticker ZAPZ) I've been watching this company for a while now. I've got a hundred shares just for safe measure. I spend more than that getting food and drinks on a big weekend!!
I don't go very fast or very far, and when people see you driving me, they'll think you're gay.
[chanting] one of us! one of us! [/chanting]
--
"Outlook not so good." That magic 8-ball knows everything! I'll ask about Exchange Server next.
Feel free to rate this "obvious", but I feel that the combination of market forces and oil wealth has slowed the rate of innovation in the transport industry to a crawl. There aren't really any competing systems - each year companies offer slight overall improvements and a new look.
I see two possible factors which might bring some real innovation - one is the looming peak oil (even the optimists place it no further than 50 years in the future) and the other is increasing traffic congestion in urban areas.
What I hope to see are small, light, preferably vehicles which combine the use of solar / wind / any power from an ecologically sound power source and our own strength. I personally feel that widespread bicycles would make for happier communities (don't point me to eastern Asia, where they are widespread not as a choice, but because of poverty). The sociology of Segway (building cities around it, yadda yadda) seems to me basically sound, if for nothing else simply because modern cars are such polluting space-eaters that make environments dangerous for kids and essentially serve as a mobile extension of people's separation. Ranting now, sorry.
IVS stands for Idiot Vermin Scum control system. The IVS system would force a driver to speed up if he gets passed five times in five minutes on a two lane highway. IVS would also apply pressure to the accelerator pedal within 5 seconds of seeing a green light, no matter how long it takes the IVS driver to admire its hue. The IVS system would sound a 110 decibel air horn inside the passenger compartment of any driver that tailgates. IVS would also prevent drivers from pulling out in front of me and shaving/applying makeup/eating/talking on cellphone while driving. If I only knew how to implement these changes, I would be able to buy and sell Bill Gates...
Due to the new technology, the accidental run-over rate for cute young ladies wearing mini-skirts and tube tops will rise dramatically.
There are some interesting write-ups here:
The Internal Combustion Engine
and
Concept IC Engine
Just today I saw a snippet about railcabs on DW-TV. Individual cars on legacy tracks that have been updated with magnetic propulsion. Cars apparently attach and detatch themselves from trains, making them fairly autonomous. Cars can carry people or cargo boxes. Various early prototypes are in progress now. The researcher suggested that a serious prototype is maybe 5 years away, with commercial deployment in 10 years.
Yes, it converts only 30-50% of the chemical energy into mechanical energy, compared to 65% with the best large-scale ground-based multi-stage turbines.
If it were efficient the emissions wouldn't be so nasty.
That's a loose correlation if the engine is tuned. For example some people remove the catalytic convertor from their engine to get more power.
In theory I think the emissions are supposed to be mostly cold water.
Hydrocarbons + O2 = H20 + CO2. Burn air instead of pure O2 and you get NO2 as well.
The H20 usually comes out as steam once the engine is warmed up. Even multi-stage turbines can't extract heat energy out of heated water. Their efficiency increases come from using even hotter steam to turn against more turbine stages until it's (comparatively) cold steam.
As someone working in the field of Human Factors, with special interest in driver safety and road design, it always worrys me to see increased Automation in cars. There is a rule in Human Factors it goes like this: "As Automation increases, the cost of mistakes also increases" For example if you have individuals controlling every car on a street if one individual screws up, they wreak their cars and maybe a few other people get involved in a pile up. On the other hand if you go with some of the extreme freeway control systems where the cars become totally automated and in control of a single traffic control ententity, if something goes wrong with that automated system the potential cost of the mistake could be much higher. Usually the comparison is made between the cost of screwing up with a Hammer verses the cost of screwing up with a Huge industrial machine... but I feel the same thing holds here. Resist Automation in vehicles, instead look at forgiving/self-explaining roads as the way to driver safety.
Oh great.. I go fix a spelling mistake in the title and remove the bolding.. and accidently press the return key and submit it instead.. Man.. smart? Me.. indeed!
Much of the rush hour traffic jam results from lag times for starting and stopping. I've never understood why large cities don't pick out main corridors and insert speed limited blockades. For example, three cop cars all travelling the same speed in parallel on a three lane highway. All traffic will sync up to that speed and flow will be laminar. There is no incentive to try and go faster than the flow since you cannot get past the blockade. The cop cars eat the start/stop lags by averaging them out. Basically, some surveillance indicates the rms speed of traffic in front of the cars, tells the cops to set that speed, and set an appropriate tail distance.
Seriously
Autopilot for Airplanes is relatively easy.
And if airplanes didn't require pilots, they would be more economical than cars, which need to stop and start to avoid hitting each other, which need very expensive roads, which tend to hit pedestrians at a frightful pace, and tend to run into each other - largely because roads are sort of an everlasting game of chicken.
Per mile travelled, airplanes are much safer.
Autopilot would prevent them running into skyscrapers, and actually reduce the threat - who wants to hijack a commuter plane with 30 gallons of fuel and 12 people?
So we convert to electric golfcarts to drive us to and from the community airdrome.
And save gas by sharing a better ride on a point to point nonstop mass transit.
AIK
From the Wall Street Journal (sorry, I don't have a link)
A Few Cars Controlled
By Computer Can Keep
Rest of Traffic Flowing
July 30, 2004; Page B1
You're trying to get away for a summer weekend, but instead you're sitting and fuming in stop-and-go traffic. Drivers are hitting their brakes for no apparent reason, causing everyone behind them to do the same. Soon what had been a smoothly if lethargically flowing stream of traffic looks like a bunched-up caterpillar. You also see drivers changing lanes erratically, causing the same ripple effect. You're sure the highway could handle this volume if only the other drivers weren't idiots.
Guess what? You're right.
L. Craig Davis is too polite to put it that way, preferring to couch his findings in more positive terms. But in a study published in the June issue of the journal Physical Review E, the physicist at University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, concludes that many traffic jams could be prevented if a mere one in five vehicles on the road used the new technology of adaptive cruise control rather than being piloted by their human driver alone. In other words, flesh-and-blood drivers make avoidable traffic-jam-causing moves that a computer does not.
"It's a very interesting result," says civil engineer Hani Mahmassani of the University of Maryland, College Park. "With ACC, by eliminating the spacing you need because of driver reaction time, you can get four times more volume on a road by letting vehicles follow each other closely at high speed."
Prof. Davis is the latest physicist to weigh in on a subject that has long been dominated by traffic engineers and "operations research" scientists. A little more than a decade ago, scientists realized that vehicles behave like molecules in a gas. In the most notorious similarity, cars ahead of you that stop or merely slow down can cause a compression wave -- a patch where the cars are jam-packed -- to propagate backward until it reaches you. The wave can persist for hours after the initial bunch of cars hit their brakes, with the result that drivers who never saw that deceleration are totally clueless about why they aren't moving. An estimated 75% of traffic jams are like this, having no visible cause.
In both traffic and gases, tiny perturbations can have effects out of all proportion to their size. In the state called "synchronized flow," traffic is moving, sometimes at a good clip, but it's so dense that the vehicles are in synch like cars in a train. Synchronized flow is, in physics-speak, in unstable equilibrium: The slightest change, such as a driver changing lanes and forcing others to brake, tips the system into a new state. The result is stop-and-go traffic, a true jam.
Physicists are exploring whether adaptive cruise control can prevent this. In ACC, a radar sensor gauges the distance between cars, automatically adjusting speed to maintain a safe distance. Because ACC, which has become standard on some luxury vehicles, can adapt instantly if the lead car brakes (humans take about 0.75 second to react), cars can tailgate safely. ACC can therefore pack more cars into a mile of highway, increasing a road's de facto capacity.
But it can do more, Prof. Davis finds. Packed cars are a traffic jam waiting to happen. "When you have dense traffic at highway speeds," he says, "if someone brakes, the flow can break down. That doesn't happen with ACC," because the ACC vehicle never actually stops unless a car in front comes to a complete halt. "Perturbations due to changes in the lead vehicle's velocity do not cause jams," he says. Instead, by refraining from excessive braking, an ACC car simply gets closer to the car in front of it. The dreaded compression wave never forms.
It isn't even necessary for all vehicles to be driven by these smart systems. On single-lane roads with high-speed traffic, if a mere 20% of vehicles used adaptive cruise control, traffic jams could be eliminated altogether, Prof. Davis concludes from his computer simulation. Put a
Mmmm.. Donuts
As for all this fancy stuff that will improve safety, well I doubt it will really have a huge benefit. People tend to drive to a certain risk level. If it feels dangerous, then they drive slower and more carefully; if it feels safe they drive faster and more carelessly. If you pack the car with "feel safe" stuff then all you nend up with is people driving faster in more extreme conditions.
Safe driving, at the end of the day, comes down to the nut that holds the wheel. Expecting electronics etc to significantly improve safety is asking a bit much.
Engineering is the art of compromise.
Whatever happened to the ideas of Rosen motors?
Their design was to have a car that has a TURBINE engine (only one moving part really), to generate electricity and then use that to drive electric motors on the wheels.
It is a much more efficent use of gasoline, and could double the life of our oil supply.
A turbine engine and electric motors are MUCH more reliable and efficent than the internal combustion engine.
If you ask me that would be a great first step toward tomorrow where the internal combustion engine is a thing of the past, and eliminates the need for all this battery stuff etc.. but gets us all in the process of using electric motors and can start that whole progress of technological improvements that will surely happen with mass adopton.
-- Given enough time and money, Microsoft will eventualy invent UNIX.
Great, so i leave a car somewhere in mint condition, and then some asshole fucks it up and hits the not "OK" button, and i get to pay for the broken windshield + whatever else he did to it.
I keyed the car of a woman on a cell phone, it was a gut reaction to almost being run over. She was in an explorer and made a right turn while i had a walk signal, looked right at me too. I'd just parked my car so my keys were in my hand anyway. She shouldn't have been that close in the first place.:P
"Sic Semper Tyrannosaurus Rex."
I really hate those red turning signals, combined with brake lights. It is hard to distinguish red-turn signal in a heavy traffic / merge area as every one is using brakes and it is a sea of RED.
Use YELLOW for turn signals. It is highly visible, and stands out. So I don't have to guess if you are tapping the brake or trying to come into my lane.
Does any body knows why auto makers do these RED turn signals? I honestly don't.
I'm sure you're all familiar with the Crazy Cabbie that insists on weaving through tight traffic as, no doubt, are people like Volvo. Adaptive Cruise can lead to other adaptive tech that might prevent speed racer from winning the race. Unless, of course, his car got 'chipped...'
We forgot that in the earlier google dominance discussion.
(sigh)... Orson Welles said it best... "... before its time."
1. 360 degree camera with mandatory governmental tap for stealth survilleance feedback in every car.
2. Radar Jammer used by terrorist in creating traffic jams which all cars outfitted with RCA (radar collision avoidance) system.
3. Teenage timer kill-switch. To stop those 15 kids jammed-in 5-seater with a potential drunk driver at the wheel and to comply with after 10PM prohibition.
4. Breath analyzer starter-kill in every car
5. voice-activated motorized vanity mirror for those vain-enough not to look ahead but only at themselves.
6. Ejection seat to safely discharge passengers during carjacking and to implode when carjacker is alone.
7. Automatic turn-signals for those who never use it.
8. Laser gun to deflate rude driver's tires (last time I checked, its legal in California Vehicle Code, unless they want to treat light beams as material goods, which isn't in a physic-sense of a word).
9. Auto-matic defensive driving mode for evading bad drivers (not that I would ever advocate its use against law enforcement). This is in opposite comparision with OnStar's remote kill-switch.
10. Two-way electric mirror on all windows for privacy in your car with your mate.
Noticed that I didn't bother to mention tricked out, boom box, chrome, or movie theatre (that is so passe).
...to the people you know.
oh wait, everyone is living in a big city and do not know their neighbours...
Volvo's accident team has attended 1,500 crashed
Hmm for some reason I think I'll just stay away from them.
Also road-following HUD, which is to say that all the reflectors, signs, lines, and ditches (not to mention oncoming cars) will be scanned somehow (radar?) and hilighted in appropriate colors so even at night, when you're hit with oncoming headlights, you will be able to see what's going on.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
A few years ago, I was at an SAE committee meeting where a project was presented. The gist of it is that cameras look at the road's lane markers. If the system detects that the vehicle is drifting too close to or maybe over the edge of the lane (without the turn signal active to signal a lane shift or turn), the system sounds an alert (loud noise) to wake up the driver who has (presumably) started nodding off. I don't recall seeing that kind of system offered in a production vehicle, but it seemed pretty far along when presented. I'd guess that all by itself, the cameras and processing power might be a bit pricy. However, if the cameras and processing power could be shared with other uses that could justify their cost....
"This signature quote intentionally left blank"
http://www.r50rd.co.uk/research/internal/v2i/engin
On another note, check out the possible 25th anniversary DeLorean!
"You may all go to hell and I will go to Texas"
Sen. Davy Crocket to US Congress, Nov. 1, 1835
Personal Rapid Transit, a packet based mass transit system.
e.g.
http://www.cprt.org/
Not that PRT will make the car obsolete, but it will reduce the need for it as day to day transport leaving it mainly as a pleasure vehicle.
Government of the people, by corporate executives, for corporate profits.
Here's a story for ya: While driving over to pickup an iTrip at the Apple Store for my new, free, 4G iPod, my brother and I ended up behind a guy who, coincedentally, had an Apple sticker, a Newton sticker and also a big ol' "Hand Up And Drive!" bumper sticker on the back of his Jeep Wrangler.
:P
Well, we were on a 2 lane road and he was in front of us and was tailgating the car in front of him pretty badly and I could tell it wasn't your normal, this is how I drive all the time, style tailgating. Obviously, this guy was pissed at the person in front of him. Suddenly he swerved into oncomming traffic and passed the car he was tailgaiting, popped back over onto our side into a second lane that had just opened up and then proceeded to scream and yell at the person, who was driving beside him now, while we all slowed and stopped at a stoplight.
My brother and I were dumbfounded! What did this person do to make this guy drive so dangerously?
What we saw through the back window of the tailgaited car, now in front of us, we saw that the woman in the car had been/was on a cellphone! Ohnos! Makes you wonder who the truely dangerous drivers are, doesn't it?
PS - Just to figuratively give the guy the finger over this whole incident, I used my cellphone while driving too! But I didn't use it to talk. Instead I used it to take a picture of his road raging ass: http://flickr.com/photos/celerityfm/312722/
IN YOUR FACE CELLPHONE NAZI!!!
...unfortunately no one can be told what The Mat^H^H^HGoatse is...they must experience it for themselves...
Doesn't the Abrams Tank have a turbine engine? Isn't it also known as a ridiculous gas guzzeller? Are you sure your numbers are correct?
I was going to say, "It's called ZipCar".
But yes, the concept exists.
--LWM
1938 Velocar Type H
1953 Velo-Velocar (I'm not sure this is the right picture as it mentions 4 wheels in the description)
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
My 2004 madza 3 has automatic wipers... a sensor checks if it's raining and adjusts accordingly... works beautifully.
The lights operate the same way.
it works so well on the sites with moderating systems...
I'm curious what people think of the developing Sky Car.
Brake lights on the front of the car, so you can tell if the idiot approaching from the other side of the four-way intersection is actually stopping. Failing that, a remote-control that actuates the other car's brakes. (Not my ideas BTW, the comedian Gallagher said this in 1984)
Honda OBDII vehicles (and many others) can be made to reveal the cause of a check engine light by jumping two terminals on a plug with a paper clip.
When the car is switched to on, the check engine light will flash. long flash = 10. short flash = 1. Add them up to get the code. look it up online. ta da.
My next vehicle will be a 1954 Chevy half ton pickup.
With 454 c.i. engine, tons of horsepower, air conditioning, on top of a camaro frame, with narrowed rear-end...
You get the picture.
Sure I will still drive my GM car with OnStar and all the other gadgets.
Sometimes, it is just that low tech(?) is much more fun!
I live the greatest adventure one could ever desire. - Tosk the Hunted.
- I live the greatest adventure anyone could possibly desire. - Tosk the Hunted
In steering and braking, even if the "power" fails (ie, the engine dies, or something else happens), you still can control the vehicle in a reasonable manner, without (generally) endangering others on the road. However, should the steering or braking fail on a drive-by-wire system, you are completely SOL.
Unless they have a backup mechanical system of some sort, I don't know if I would trust such systems - they don't have a proven track record, unlike large commercial aircraft, which I know do use a true fly-by-wire system (at least the larger, newer aircraft). These aircraft also have generally a three-computer voting system to determine actions and outcomes based on current conditions and sensor readings. Furthermore, their software goes through a QA process unlike any other software on the planet (read, big $$$ to certify and QA - especially on changes to the software over various release versions). I don't know if we would see that kind of scrutiny in a vehicle's "driving management system" (or whatever they would call it) or not - given the cheapness in the average automobile (hell, even supposed luxury automobiles are built like crap), I tend to doubt it.
I agree that what such advances could allow for are amazing, and very tempting to the buyer (IIRC, GM has the "skateboard" platform with the drive-by wire system - allowing a return to custom body styles and manufacturers - case-modding for cars, anyone?). I just can't see myself trusting such a vehicle until all the bugs are shaken out over a few years and the track record and safety figures are the same as a regular vehicle. Computers (all computers) can and do crash - if I don't have any control over the direction and velocity of my vehicle when they fail, death could result in a hurry...
Reason is the Path to God - Anon
It seems to me that the more automated and complicated automobiles become, the more people are drawn to old cars that are simpler to operate and repair. I think that vehicles that require LESS skill to operate are infinitely more dangerous, as it encourages people who SHOULDN'T drive to get behind the wheel. As I say, this is all imho, but for the most part, cars should be designed to be as efficient and as simple as possible without being made disposable. Also, I'd like to state for the record that bigger better stereos are a hazard. They completely take your concentration away from the road.
PLEASE!
;)
How many drivers have you seen with a cell phone on their ear, and swerving in and out of traffic.
Obviously, even with states with laws against it, isn't stopping people or getting people to use hands free sets.
I'd like to see a pain-free way of connecting the cell phone with the car's system.
I know you've seen packages that integrate with the car's audio system. I'd like to see these more common or standard.
With all the different types of cell phone manufacturers, it's harder than you think. Can't make them all bluetooth, can we
Get over it America!!! The big fraud is going to play out as follows:
For Americans the cars of tomorrow are going to be bicycles. This is part of the government's grand economic, environmental, and healthcare plan for America. The plan is still highly classified but I did find out that it is named "Operation China Flip".
Operation China Flip got started in the early 1930's when the pathetic lilliputian working slaves in America were audacious enough to demand the right to make more than a survival existance wage, although the plan did not become offical government policy until the 1990s. This is what happened:
Because the evening news didn't report it most Americans had no idea how badly their demands had enraged the greedy pig f%^kers that own everything. I mean you have never seen an angrier bunch of greedy pig f%^kers that own everything than the cigar chomping bastards that had to make a few concessions in the late 1930s. But they remembered, and they stayed mad, and they vowed to get even...
Fortunately for the worthless lilliputians a big war broke out in the 1940s and the greedy pig f%^kers that own everything were able to exploit the snot out of the war rather than dumping America at that time. But shortly after the war the worthless lilliputians got uppitty again and they started whining about cars and t.v.s and the right to have enough time to bar-b-que on the weekends. And even worse; the worthless lilliputians wanted the right to medical care AND the right to time at the end of their lives to relax a bit before dropping dead.
This was absolutely unprecedented in history - I mean imagine a worthless lilliputian beast of burden demanding the right to medical care? AND retirement? No, no, no this could not be. So the greedy pig f%^kers that own everything started looking around for a new and more exploitable pool of wothless lilliputian beasts of burden.
By the early 1960s the greedy pig f%^kers that own everything saw Latin America and Vietnam as potentially exploitable options. Because it wasn't reported on the evening news most Americans had no idea that it was the greedy pig f%^kers that own everything that whacked Kennedy and kicked up the Vietnam war. Unfortunately for the greedy pig f%^kers that own everything Vietnam didn't work out as planned and so Latin America was chosen instead.
During the 1970s and 1980s the greedy pig f%^kers that own everything exported a bunch of factories down to Latin America and it worked; the worthless Latin American lilliputian beasts were dumber and more exploitable than the worthless American lilliputian beasts. But then a strange thing happened...
By a freak of luck somebody in China made an "exploitable improvement in exploitability" and just as the greedy pig f%^kers that own everything were about to uproot and move to Latin America, China became a viable option. Sooo, during the 1990s and the 2000s the greedy pig f%^kers that own everything have been piecemeal dismantling the American economy and moving it to China. Because this wasn't reported on the evening news most Americans didn't know that it was happening let alone take up arms to defend themselves.
And now we are here: the part of the con game where the other Neo-Con shoe drops. The greedy pig f%^kers that own everything are almost finished dismantling America and just now the completely worthless evening news is barely starting to report that a few jobs might go to China - but don't worry - overral times are great and you are free to work as many hours a week as you want to; Walmart needs you, uhhm, well maybe just part time...
You see, in order to save the environment and provide healthcare the greedy pig f%^kers that own everything are going to export the economy to China. The plan is a beautiful masterpiece of Neo-Con thinking:
Phase 1: Invade Iraq. On the surface of it the utter stupidity of invading Iraq is beyond measure; I mean really --> assaulted by a band of Saudi Wahabis
I would wager trains are more fuel efficient per person/kg, far easier to automate an autopilot for (speed up, slow down), and don't have the tendency to fall 30,000+ feet when the autopilot for whatever reason, decides to commit suicide. Plus with more dedication on infrastructure, they can go pretty quick too.
All the military vehicles have this standard...reason being so that anyone can hop in the thing and drive it away in an emergency, without having to search dead bodies for keys.
The problem for civies is that any one can hop in the thing and drive it away... but I do believe the new hybirds have implemented this as a feature.
>Because ACC, which has become standard on some luxury vehicles, can adapt instantly if the lead car brakes (humans take about 0.75 second to react), cars can tailgate safely.
Not exactly, ACC systems take a while to react. It has a typical meassure/calculation clycle of about 100ms, and usually use a couple of cycles to take a decision. So aprox. 200ms reaction time.
>ACC can therefore pack more cars into a mile of highway, increasing a road's de facto capacity.
Not really. ACC programmed space-time gap usually is bigger as normal driver, just because normal drivers do not respect forward security distance.
I was comparing it to other tanks, not your honda.
It's notorious for needing it's own fuel truck to follow behind it into battle....
Honestly, the technology exists right now to automatically drive my car along a freeway.
Carnegie Mellon's: No Hands Across America
UC Berkeley's platoon of cars at Demo '97
But this will never be a mainstream product in our society. Too many lawyers and other disinterested parties (such as insurance companies).
This is actually pretty close to the truth. This is a major reason why Adaptive Cruise Control is being sold by OEMs as a "convenience" feature rather than a safety benefit. Another major factor is that many of these systems rely on rather expensive sensors (from a car component perspective). Consumer willingness to plunk down thousands of dollars to enable their car with these systems is not present except for the luxury models.
Where's my flying car?!
Proverbs 21:19
The design consideration of the Abrams was for speed, not fuel efficiency, figuring a battle range of less than 100mi, hence the gas turbine rather than the diesel engine that almost all other tanks use (and yes, diesel engines are inherently more efficient). The type of turbine that's being described by the OP is a turbine to generate electricity, not to move a 60+ton vehicle, so the comparison with a battle tank that uses a different type of turbine for a different purpose seemed pretty senseless.
before it was a semi-human sounding monotone telling you to "Please close your door, Please close your door, Please close your door."** Now its your wife saying: "Stop staring at her tits and WATCH THE ROAD!" *Bachelor edition: D-cup detected at 4 'o clock! **Unless you got the Ghetto special "EY! i said close the damn do mofo!"
A bullet may have your name on it but splash damage is addressed "To whom it may concern."
My car is perfect as-is. I have a 2002 4-door Dodge Stratus SE with the 200HP 2.7L V6 (24 Valve, DOHC). It's pretty badass all 'round. It's been in like 5 wrecks and still runs like a charm. It has about 30k miles on it, and I put on about 10 a year (got it a year ago). It's an awesome car, and it's put up with what I've put it through. Two of the wrecks are from when I owned it. One time my mom was driving it, and the other (a few days ago), I was fully stopped at a stoplight, and a big truck rear-ended me. Screwed up his trunk bad, put a dent in my bumper. They are pretty good cars. The old-world pre-2001 ones suck though.
Sig: I stole this sig.
I predict that within a hundred years cars will be twice as large, get half the mileage, and be so expensive that only the five richest kings of Europe can afford them.
It's not FUNNY. It's INTERESTING or INFORMATIVE, or that other word I cannot spell properly (insightfull?)
Hey, when comfort can be had without:
1) Destroying the ecosystem
2) Unnecessarily causing huge wars over scarce resources
3) Setting up an economy based on a non-renewable resource which is doomed to crash
then I'm all in favor of it. However, using fossil fuels to go everywhere is a short-sighted solution to an problem that can be solved without causing any of the problems like the three above.
So, yeah. If you don't wanna occasionally ride a bike or pedal a car, even though it's better for everyone on the entire planet, then you are lazy as well as selfish.
---------The early bird gets the worm, but the second mouse gets the cheese.
I'm personally horrified about adding more technology to cars: they give false sense of security and people start paying less attention to what they really should be doing.
I've driven before legal age (not on public roads though) and consider more important that there should compulsory "track days" or somesuch. Closed tracks are great for learning handling of cars and getting to know the limits at where you lose control of the car to physics. Most people can hardly take a small trip to malls and when weather changes they're a danger to everyone.
And what happens when technology fails? Look at recent experiments with Windows CE for example. We're lucky they haven't replaced brake control with buggy software by now..
As a software engineer I know how much things can go wrong they do go wrong: overtrusting technology can lead to very bad results.
With all the macho bird names already taken, look out for the Pontiac Peacock, Honda Hummingbird and the Mercury Magpie.
You need to be careful of overflow conditions.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
a) double the cost of making a highway and retrofit the existing network, or
b) pay a whole lot more for your car (think a couple of ten grands)
There are many initiatives, especially in California, and in Canada, but their goal is having a working prototype in 5 years, at least(that is, if everything goes well).
Having co-written the basic paper for the canadian lab, I can assure you the challenge is interesting. Don't try this at home! At least work with other researchers ;-)
You're not old until regret takes the place of your dreams.
if you keep a safe following distance, the people behind you overtake you in unsafe areas, increasing you chances of a serious crash. Then, when they pull in in front of you, you are once again at an unsafe following distance. So you back off further...
Lather, rinse, repeat.
The safest thing seems to be to follow too closely but stay totally focused. This is not a good way to live and is a terrible way to start your workday.
Thankfully, I have the option of going in after rush hour and I generally avail myself of that option.
A Nony Mouse
Removable lights, windows, locks, stereos, mirrors, wheels, engines etc. Cross compatibility.
I.E. Upgrade engine? Upgrade Headlights? Buy new body? Etc.
Also why don't they just make the speed lane on highways 130 kmph (faster as cars become faster) and force drivers to stay at that EXACT speed. then there will be no bunching etc. If your car cannot do that deal with regular traffic.
I'd also like to see a slowdown in car safety regulation upgrades, it's the number one reason consumers cannot stick with older model cars and designing new ones is the reason for the cost increases, the safety benefits are minimal in each new model upgrade, I'd like to see car weight maximized at approx. 750pd. Then they will be a smaller threat to pedestrians and each other.
As anyone who has ever strayed from Vault 13 would know, the car of the future is 100% analog, no computer of any kind.
Simple vehicles weigh less, last longer, and have greater cool factor. Seriously, my favorite transportation is the mostly 1979 Harley Sportster I built with my own two hands. It has 3 circuits, a headlight, a breaklight, and an ignition coil.
Trying to use sarcasm in text-based forums does not work.
It's the next logical step. Then you have a car which can drive itself...
P RT/
But if cars can drive themselves it doesn't really make sense that everyone has one, after all, it isn't really a good use of resources to have a car or three sitting idle in office/mall garages for an individual when it can be off transporting your children to school and your wife to the shops or her own job. There's no longer a need for a 3 car family, you simply call the car and tell it when and where you want to be picked up. Why spend 80 grand on multiple cars when you can spend 30 grand on one car and the other 50 on something more enjoyable?
But wait, we can take this a step further, why limit it just to private transport, the same applies to public transport. Why own a car at all when you can simply call an autotaxi and it'll pick you up when and where you want and deliver you when and where you want. Instead of investing 80 grand in hardware which depreciates by 30% the second it rolls out of the showroom and then continues to cost you 2 grand a year in fuel, servicing and insurance. Simply call an autocab.
Course there's still the problem of traffic, just because most of the cars are driven automatically doesn't reduce the numbers on the road and there are still going to be normally driven cars on the road so you're still going to get stuck in traffic jams during rush hour. You could take the public autotaxis off the road and put them on separate raised "roads" which allows full computer control and which bypass the normal roads, thereby bypassing the traffic jams.
e.g.
http://www.skywebexpress.com/
and
http://www.atsltd.co.uk/
and
http://www.yorkprt.com/
and
http://www.austrans.com/
The concept is called Personal Rapid Transit and is basically a packet based mass transit system. It's perfectly possible to implement today.
More info:
http://faculty.washington.edu/~jbs/itrans/
http://www.cprt.org/
http://www.acprt.org/
Government of the people, by corporate executives, for corporate profits.
New features might take a while. Until your average car incorporates all the features which luxury cars already have, there is no impetus for the luxury car makers to develop that many more.
For example... on my BMW X5 I have some really nice features - Xenon lights, auto dimming mirrors (rear and side), rain sensing wipers, light sensing headlights, park distance control (radar that keeps you from banging into things when parking), hill descent control, etc. Adaptive Cruise control and actual cameras to see behind you (instead of a mirror) are also available now on other cars. Until those all come in your standard Honda Civic, it doesn't really profit them to develop that many more.
The ones that will get pushed forward quickly are safety related ones... driver alertness sensors, cop control devices (let them slow/stop your vehicle), passenger detection for airbag deployment (rate how large passengers are, etc.)... that kind of thing. You can see that in the recent past how things like anti-lock brakes and airbags are pretty much the only features that have trickled down lately (well, besides heated seats - that's a woman thing!)
I keep hoping that bluetooth integration for hands free phone systems becomes commonplace so you can use your cellphone... and something to hook in my ipod better than the lame ipod/bmw campaign... (make my nav system screen worth the $$$ I paid!)
Forward Mounted Missile Launchers.
They'd be a great help for my afternoon commute. On the other hand, my car is too small to carry enough ammo for driving on MOPAC.
It's good to use your head, but not as a battering ram.
This is what I think... There won't be cars in the future. There will only be personalised vehicles to transport each individual. Roads, the larger they are, will not allow single vehicles. There has to be two or more (depending on the road) vehicles required to travel together. Probably the smallest road will allow individual vehicles to travel by themselves. As more vehicles travel together the overall fuel consumption will decrease and fuel efficiency will increase. Individual vehicles will be able to break off from this combined unit as they reach their destinations.
1. Go to 'Flying' Cars.
2. Have Speed Control that goes the speed limit on that streach of road.
3. Have a semi-intelligent collision avoidence system.
4. Electric Motors.
With a bit of practice, you'll have it down pat.
GM has a concept fuel cell car that uses electric hookups for the controls. It has an interchangeable "skateboard" base partly as a result, and can swap out the rest of the car entirely. Swappable exteriors is a big potential change in the manufacturing and sales model you're using, anyway. I don't necessarily see why something like Subaru's "boxer" engines couldn't get some of those same advantages without giving up the gas engine -- that engine's pretty low in the car, granted not quite as low as the GM chassis.
But yeah -- personally I'm with Al Gore -- the internal combustion engine is a 19th century technology that should be nearing the end of its life for lots of the ways we use it. Take a look at lots of people's lawn mowers spewing white smoke from their little two-cycle engines. That ain't the future. It's only the weight of the existing distribution model for oil and gas that's keeping those things around. (All points Al Gore made in his pointy-headed environuttiness. Gosh, what a kook.)
"Fundamentalism" isn't about divine morality. It's about human authority.
This applies to computers, too.
Intel had the technology to create many past generations of CPU's years before they went into production.
But if you could buy a cheap CPU today with 10x the performance of todays fastest x86 CPU, you wouldn't have to upgrade as often, and the manufacturer would loose money.
The idea is to keep us regularly coming back for more, to keep the level of consumption as high as possible.
(Posting as Anonymous Coward right now because I have no choice. Please mod me up as "Insightful" if you think it is warranted)
Does it even have to be a vehicle? Remember those ambulation enhancement machines featured in the Matrix movies? The military is working on prototypes of such assistive running/walking devices right now.
Land-bound vehicles are limited by terrain and a need for linear travel paths, and lots and lots of asphalt, concrete, and real estate. At some point, the capacity to build more roads will be exceeded, if it hasn't been exceeded already. I can easily see the deployment of many ambulation enhancers rather than vehicles for all but the longest trips. How would you like to RUN ten miles to work at 40 mph and arrive there not even winded?
First off I don't see much in current trends the big oil companies control it too much. Look at it, 50 years of technology that hasn't been introduced because of the oil industry. Now things, I do think one idea that could be done, reducing the need for infra-red cams and such, why not use UV lights, most clothing this will reflect off of, and it doesn't require specialized displays or equipment. LED lighting would be more used, they are bright and low powered. I would love heads up display would be nice, even for such things as speed and such. I do see drive-by wire, to being used more, you could have instead of a central control of pressure to break.. you could have 4 different electrically controlled breaks.. which means if one fails, the rest don't. Megnetic fluids will also be used in cars for transmissions and steering column, possibly even shocks. Now if we get into electric motor based systems (not mentioning how the electricity is supplied, as there's issues with that), I see the use of plate motors being used more, this would give true 4 wheel steering, and make it possible to parallel park by pulling up beside of the parking spot. Now if you get into my exotic ideas, I see the following (idea comes from many areas including racing): First you have a Chassis, this you buy, one size fits all. Now the first option is the transmission, its mounted to the chassis. The engine is then dropped onto the transmission, this would be a quick mount, where only a few bolts hold the two together. Then you would purchase a body, to fit who you are. this could be a mixture of plastics, and metal, or something like CerMet, or what ever you want. The body is a complete kit, that sits on the Chassis, and is removable. From the body to the engine there is mounting points for power and such, but no other mount points (remember drive-by wire) simple wire connector.. like the ATX connector or such. Now the idea with this, is if I decide that I want the new model, I just buy the body, I take it in, they pull off the body and replace it with a new one.. the existing engine, and chassis you keep.. If i decide to upgrade the engine.. I take it in, they pull out the engine and drop in a new one, make the connections and your done.. just my ideas.
At least here in Europe, we see the signs of the future cars today, and I hate it. All trends seem to converge to make traffic laws self-enforcing like laws of nature.
Want to drive too fast - sorry, the car won't allow you.
Want to park where you shouldn't - the automatically request a parking ticket for you.
The pieces for this total traffic control are already here today. A few examples:
We already have black boxes for cars. Those will see wide adoptions as soon as the insurance companies give rebates for having them installed. For them it makes sense, as it provides better data about accidents. No more fibbing how fast you were.
We already have active on-board-units toll-collection for highway and automatic verification of the box is present. At the moment, it's only for trucks on highways here in Austria, but the system is still young.
We already have working number plate scanner which tag entry ond exit time of cars on a road section and generates automatically speeding tickets if the average speed is too high.
A lot of cars already have GPS navigation to know where they are. Some of those have online updates for traffic jams and other up-to-date news. I can imagine some of them even can tell you today if you're driving too fast.
The engine-management software of all sports cars in Europe won't allow you to exceed 250 km/h, even if the car could.
Tamper-prevention software is in wide use and mostly works if used together with verification. Think about the XBox.
Now put all those ingredients in a big bowl, add a healthy dose of total-control-freaks in burocracies, bake for 10 years with insurance and motor-tax incentives and you get self-enforcing traffic laws.
The car will know where it is and what the speed limits are. The car will make sure for you, that you stay a good citizen via the motor management. The car will know how big the distance to the front car is and will make sure you keep a healthy distance.
Now why not rip the little dictator out of your car? Your car will have to identify itself to the autorities for toll collection on the most travelled roads. While doing that, it's very easy to verify that an untampered control-unit works in the car. If not, they have your license plate from the traffic camera.
All in all, for most purposes it won't be possible to escape. Due to the numerous checkpoints, the recognition-rate doesn't even have to be perfect. 80 to 90 percent is good enough.
Why develop auto-pilots if it's so easy to make the life of the drivers miserable.
Why should we be tethered to the ground? Let's move into the sky with the Moller Sky Car!
Did anyone else notice that they've got one of those head/eye tracking systems up for bid on ebay? http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item =5124412407
Includes a plane ticket to australia!
The basic concepts:
* There should be a radio link between cars front to back that communicates braking or other sudden moves, and the communication should span several cars so you get a lot more advance warning than you get from watching the brake lights of only the one car in front of you.
* Each car transmits and receives at very lower power on a small antenna. It notes the signal strength of each transmission and assigns likely distances. Each car identifies itself with semi-random code (set on startup or after reaching 0 mph each time) so it's at least a little difficult to track people for the wrong reason.
* Once a car has heard the same code multiple times it knows it's probably a real car from the same pack, not a spurious signal from oncoming traffic or random noise. Nearby cars co-operate to triangulate the sources and orient themselves (cheap) or have GPS units on board (not as cheap). dGPS isn't as important since relative positions are sufficient and they'll all be degraded by the same vector (I think).
* When one of the cars notes that it is in a likely accident scenario (fast steering input, heavy braking, accelerometer detected collision, turn signal against neighboring car, cell signal detected, too much time fiddling with radio) the situation is broadcast to nearby cars with the semi-random code (member of your pack) + hard-coded-on-a-chip VIN or other unique id (so spoofers/tweakers aren't anonymous). Neighbor cars can maybe snap a picture to get a plate number too.
* Anyway, one the emergency signal goes out, other cars evaluate last known positions and signal to the driver in a manner that reduces accident likelihood. For the most part, the safest thing to do is brake steadily for a collision unfolding ahead of you, so maybe a pseudo-brake light projected HUD-like onto the windshield would be sufficient for most scenarios, plus an indication of how hard you'll have to brake to avoid the eventual collision w/o causing a new collision with the guy tailing you.
* some cameras so that non-participating cars get monitored also, plus they can see the lane markers, curbs, bridges, etc.
* packs heading toward a same-level intersection can communicate a little to make sure at least one of the packs is slowing down for the red light. Someone breaking from the pack to run the light can be yelled at, and drivers in danger from the side street can be cautioned.
Anyway, the idea is not to take over control from the driver, but to provide advance warning of things that aren't immediately visible but which probably require some input very soon, and to prep the driver of what course of action might be appropriate once they buy into the urgency of the situation.
Which will zap the idiot in front of you with 50,000 volts until it hangs up the phone and moves out of the left lane so you can get to work...
--Richard
One really cool technology on the horizon is Vehicular Ad Hoc Networks (VANETs). These will use the 5.9 GHz band for Dedicated Short Range Communications (DSRC). Basically, cars will talk to each other and to the roadside, exchanging status information relevant to safety and efficiency. You could be alerted to upcoming traffic jams or approaching emergency vehicles. There is also talk about making traffic signals more efficient by letting them know when cars are coming, way in advance.
VANETs are a variant of mobile networking which have plenty of electrical and computational power available at each node, and where node to node distances are typically small. It's an ideal environment for mobile networking.
But I reckon the best place to trial this kind of tech is in retirement villiages using fleets of golf-carts (or similar). The vehicles don't move very fast, they're in a bounded environment, it's a known environment, and it would provide a useful service that people might actually pay for. Have the fleet cruise around slowly when empty, be summonable by voice or computer, use voice recognition and you're away.
1. Set variable valve timing to minimize compression ratio.
2. Reconfigure electrical system so that the battery-charging generator runs backwards as a motor. You now have a 288-volt ~20 horsepower starter.
3. Monitor engine RPM. It will be at full idle speed before the first complete revolution.
(I don't know whether the computer checks oil pressure).
4. THEN turn on ignition and fuel injection, and set valve timing to normal.
The engine oil stays amazingly clean and one Prius engine survived 200,000 miles in a taxicab before Toyota bought it for study.
Cold starts are easy as well. One Prius owner experimentally cold-soaked his Prius by leaving it outside overnight in winter in Minnesota. After spending the night at -22 Fahrenheit his Prius started the first time, though it took an extra second or two.
- Safety: carbon fibre is super strong! (Formula one, remember)
- Environment: lighter means less fuel consumption,
...
- Durability: no corrosion or metal fatigue.
Check out the article. (dutch, use babelfish-- debian linux - vim powered
I hope the auto makers introduce more cars with fewer features for those of us who love computers, but don't want them mixed with our mechanical toys.
-Rich
Philadelphia, PA (PhillyCarShare)
The number one problem with driving is the other drivers. therefore the only solution would be to get rid of drivers. why put so much effort into monitoring the driver, when a driverless world could be realized with current technology.
for example you would need gps units in each car with detailed maps of all the roads and addresses. the cars would also need appropriate sensors like those used in addaptive cruise control. for extra precision throw in some in-road or next-to-road things that the car could sense. next, use some form of wireless connection to network all the cars together. finaly, mix in some government to regulate it all with some infastructure and software that monitors and control the network.
cars like this could go 100 mph, or as fast as the road allows. they could be sent to park themselves, maybe a mile away, after droping you off. driving drunk won't be a problem, and insurance costs should be lower. when there is an accident, all the cars would automatically know and reroute themselves. as more and more cars became like this highways could be made thiner, 2 or 4 lanes down from 6 or 8.
of course there are downsides. taxi drivers would lose their jobs, as would truck drivers, parking vallets, meter maids, etc.
"My Gran once got in one, and when she was going to load her stuff into the trunk - she was a musician, yanno, lots of cases - she found this bag fulla dollars, must be half a mil in bundled notes. Just sitting there in the trunk. This is back when half a mil was serious money, ya gotta remember. And that's not all, there was a dead body next to it. Guy in business clothes, tied up with duct tape. Musta suffocated or something. Too fresh to stink.
I tell you, she threw a fit! Was going to slap the "not OK" button so fast... but Grandpa, well, he figured they could use the money."
"So what happened?"
"Well, Jim - they named the guy Jim - they dug him a hole up a ways thataway, in the woods. Got a bible and did a service an all. And the half-a-mil, well... ya don't think they built themselves a house as nice as this one by playin' music?"
I want less "automatic" features.
Automatic power windows aren't so bad.
Automatic transmission is reasonable, but no fun.
Automatic headlights? Bad idea. Hate.
Automatic volume adjust (stereo gets louder when driving)? Bad idea. Dislike.
Automatic wipers? Hate.
Cruise control? Hate. Especially in the hills.
Just let *ME* drive!
Having to poke or twist all those manual controls is sometimes all that *KEEPS ME AWAKE*!
By taking control away from the driver, we end up with "features" guaranteed to distract the driver!
(what? why are my wipers on? where's that control again? THUMP!)
(look, a speed trap! how do I flash the lights at oncoming traffic again? CRUNCH!)
I do *NOT* want to share the road with anyone who CANNOT HANDLE THIS! They just sit in my way, driving 45 in the 55 zone, in the Left Lane!
Okay, I have an automatic feature I want. Automatic "YOU ARE TOO LAME TO DRIVE" sensor.
Aargh!
The "vehicle" of tomorrow will be all-naturally-made shoes (natural leather, wood, etc).
After all, there won't be any (economically usable) oil for cars, mining machines, tires, plastic, electricity, or anything else.
I think for the short term future, we will likely see the wide acceptance of what some call a multi-purpose vehicle, essentially a "taller" station wagon with very flexible interior arrangements.
The concept, which originated with the original Renault Megané Scenic in the middle 1990's, is very popular in most of the world, especially those who want vehicles with station wagon and minivan-like features but without the poor fuel efficiency of older American-style station wagons and today's minivans. Here in the USA, that trend is starting to take hold: the success of the Ford Focus ZX5 hatchback and station wagon models, the success of the Mazda3, the hot sales of the Toyota Matrix/Pontiac Vibe twins, the hot sales of the Scion xA/xB "tall wagons," the hatchback design of the current Toyota Prius and the success of the Suzuki Aerio SX hatchback shows Americans do want this class of vehicle.
In the near future, Honda will introduce to the US market the small but very roomy Fit hatchback as a 2006 model, and Honda will likely sell vehicles based on the design of the recently-introduced FR-V/Edix tall wagon for the US market, too.
These class of vehicles will likely down the road benefit from new engine technologies, whether hybrid drivetrains, clean turbodiesel engines, or eventually fuel cell power.
On my S500 the car is fitted with 3 radars. You can set the max speed you want and the car will drive up to that fast, otherwise it will happily follow the car in front and always maintain a safe distance. the nice thing about it is the radar system can detect incoming obstacles from the side, so if you're travelling 120km/h and someone starts to cut into your lane the system can detect that and slows you down accordingly.
That's commuting.
:)
This is driving.
With enough bandwidth, we could have cheap call centers take care of driving :)
I'm still perfecting the Gay Deciever in my garage, I got the sewing machine housing and the gyro, but I can't seem to prefect capturing the 3 axes at the same time.
:^)
So far, the time continuum is only uni-directional.
They Live, We Sleep
Sorry, I can't see the caravan (trailer for the USians). I presume it's round the next corner.
You may well enjoy the myth of driving as sold by the glossy adverts produced by the car companies but it's just that, a myth. There are no empty twisty roads left and SUV's don't spend their lives climbing mountains.
Government of the people, by corporate executives, for corporate profits.
It has been noted statistically that as cars have become safer, drivers have responded by driving faster and more dangerously. Part of the reason why SUVs are more dangerous than any other vehicle is that they give the driver an exaggerated--in fact, entirely illusory--impression of invulnerability.
I have, in the past, suggested that we should improve safety by taking note of this effect, and fitting car dashboards with sharpened rotating knives.
GCHQ Quantum Insert installed. If only our tongues were made of glass, how much more careful we would be when we speak
Why does the windshield defrost limit the heater? I can't count the number of days I have froze in my car because it's more important to keep the windshield clear than to heat my driver bones. Or the days in a warm rain where I needed to keep the windshield cool, and not the air conditioning on me.
I am not a gearhead. I want a built in diagonistic sensor that checks my car, and lets me know if it's time for an oil change, or to rotate my tires, or even if that strange sound coming from under the hood means I need a belt tightened. I want a car that doesn't require me as a driver to ever pop the hood except in rare conditions.
And On-Star is a good feature for high end cars, but how about a satellite tracking system that checks out the mall/university/other large parking lot, and tells me where an open parking space is?
I want more creature comforts for less money.
that we haven't moved towards this sophisticated "smarter" car idea is because the human being does not want to give up control over their vehicle. We can all agree that we think we can drive our cars better than computers, and if you don't agree then you've spent wayyy to much time on this website.
Ahhh, you see--some problems with having autonomous vehicles carrying people around would be inherent in the nature of technology, such as unreliability (god forbid Microsoft ever makes), conflicts in different OSes (i.e. your Civic's OS doesn't like the system that tollbooth coming up is using, and you're not allowed through because of handshake and/or packet errors), and if some script kiddie decides to go and fuck up the whole traffic grid... Not, of course, that the roads would be any less hazardous then they are now, because, even with those flaws, one would probably be safer--at least statistically--than we are now. Either way, driving (or lack thereof) will probably always have some risk related to it. As a last note, I would like to apologize in advance if this post is redundant, as I don't have the patience to read through, let me see... Ah, yes, 696 comments at the time of posting to check.
The horrors of modern society are not so much what goes 'bump' in the night, but what goes 'beep' in the night.
Note from author of the parent comment: Sorry for the clutter, but I guess /. just doesn't like Safari.
The horrors of modern society are not so much what goes 'bump' in the night, but what goes 'beep' in the night.
Bigger seats!! Given the average American's ever enlarging girth, future car designs will have to acoomodate larger bodies. Not only will seats be larger (perhaps the bench seat will return?) and reinforced, but larger seatbelts and stronger airbags will be needed as well. Not to mention larger cup holders for those 40 oz. travel mugs and maybe even enlarged buttons and controls for bigger fingers.
I'm a bike enthusiast. Love my bike, keeps me fit, good for the planet, give me bike over car anyday. But how does the braking work for the big trailer? It would be totally cool to be able to haul big loads on my bike but I really don't fancy having to slam on my brakes fast going down hill because some Volvo driver has pulled out without looking and find the brand new fridge I'm towing isn't going to stop well... Disc brakes? are there brakes on the trailer?
Why bother with programming a network of CPUs when nature has given us an animal ready, willing and able to do all the clever stuff we're only now beginning to build into cars?
A hundred years ago, a doctar called out in the night could catch-up on his sleep in the drive home, letting the horse do all the navigation and traffic management.
Then, too, show me the car that can make another car...
New mod option wanted: -1 DrunkenRambling
Luxury manufacturers have been interested in voice recognition for a long time. As voice recognition technology improves, expect to see it in luxury sedans controlling the climate system, radio, and other devices.
Maybe my memory is not working right, but I seem to recall a rental car costing around 30 or 40 cents per mile. Autocabs amount to buying the chance to temporarily use a car, so it is reasonable to expect that the companies that operate them will charge at least as much as a rental car company does. (And with a rental car you buy your own fuel. With an autocab the fuel cost will have to be added to the cost of borrowing the vehicle. Given the nature of corporations where I live (USA), that fuel will probably be charged at premium prices.)
By this logic, a person who currently drives 1000 miles a month will spend $300 to $400 per month just on the cost of borrowing the vehicle, plus inflated prices for fuel. Personally, I drive about 16000 miles per year rather than 12000, so for me an autocab would be at least $400 per month in borrowing costs alone.
I'm no accountant, but I suspect my 1997 Dodge Neon is costing me a lot less than $400 per month. I know for sure I would become irritable if I had to start paying $400 per month plus inflated costs for fuel.
Before you say that an autocab would cost a lot less than that to operate, remember this: I don't care what the corporation that owns the autocab is spending to operate it. I care what they are charging me for the chance to use it. Having thousands of cars performing useful work instead of sitting in a parking lot sounds like a more efficient use of resources, but if the corporation that owns the cars doesn't pass the savings on to me, why should I care?