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Nissan Exhibits IEEE 1394-Compatible Car
Dirak writes "High-speed IEEE 1394 optical fiber networks have gone off-road with new Nissan's prototype vehicle demonstrated this year's at 11th World Congress on Intelligent Transport Systems. The prototype is equipped with 7 cameras on the body and a 12-inch LCD monitor in the front and another in the rear seat area. Thanks to the in-vehicle IEEE 1394 LAN, which is capable of high-speed communications at 400Mbps via optical cable, the front and the rear seat monitors can display various information simultaneously, for example. The application of optical fiber also means that the weight of the cables can be reduced to about one-half the weight of a conventional wiring harness."
... somebody will get modded up for making an 'insightful' point about how impractical it is for whatever oversimplified reason.
"Derp de derp."
I mean, seriously, whats so special?
Optical in a car? So? We've had cables in a car for quite some time. We've had monitors in a car for quite some time. We've even had internet in a car for quite some time. Whats so special?
We've moved to communicating 1394 with light wires?? Hurray.
No offense, but why is this "stuff that matters"?? Or is it just "news for nerds"?
Sounds like something between an Episode of Pimp My Ride and a James Bond's Aston Martin DB5.
that you can play a dvd in your car instead of driving? i mean, do we really need another distraction in cars? plus all of that new electronics, something is bound to go wrong.
"The world will not come to an end if i write on my hand."
This will make it so much easier to film those Getaway in Stockholm videos and other tidbits for "world's wackiest car chases".
Of course the black-box type implications of potential onboard video recording capability can't be underestimated either. Thermal imaging will make driving through the fog slightly easier as well, though I think we'll have to consider the safety implications of geeks at high-speed tweaking onboard surveillance to watch the road rather than actually watching it...
Indy Media Watch-Proctologist of the Internet
I can already see some uses of this technology.
1. Sensor which alerts owners that their car tyre has been chalked (parking tickets).
2. Sensor to trigger water spray to remove any chalk marks
3. Monitor to checks all four wheels, when you feel/hear something weird, but don't want to stop your car.
4. Monitor to checks if your skirts is trapped between the door and slapping on the tarmac going 100mph.
5. Monitor to show your windscreen wiper spray tank level, so you know when to refill.
Rock that crushes, Paper & Scissors that don't matter.
Hopefully more car and truck manufacturers will start incorporating better technology within their vehicles. I bought a 2003 honda accord with voice recognition and a sweet gps touch screen. Bring on the technology!!!
I love the idea of multimedia in the car, but just one problem:
"The prototype is equipped with 7 cameras on the body and a 12-inch LCD monitor in the front"
Wouldn't this be more than a little bit distracting for the driver? I mean, what's more interesting, watching the red light change green or watching neo take the red pill?
Now, if you can get some more of these cars and play networked GTA with your friends...
Wow, they're bragging up the reduction of weight of a wiring harness in a car. That's just awesome. Holy crap don't want to go over GVWR in the Nissan with a copper cabling system. Pardon me while I go shopping for light weight optical camping gear as not to kill my gas milage.
Now I can really have fun zapping Nissans...with my /. inspired herf gun.
The last time I checked optical cabling like niether virbration or dirt. So is this really a great application? BTW 1394... WHY? it makes some sense but seems slightly random as well.
What could possibly go wrong?
IEEE1394.b was supposedly capable of scaling to 3200mbps via optical connections, but I've not yet seen any such equipment (or even the 1600mbps variant) - anyone know what the poop is on >800mbps FW?
when did firewire go optical?
re: High-speed IEEE 1394 optical fiber networks...
If you don't know what AltaVista is (was), get off my lawn.
Knight Rider, anybody?
(Please browse at -1 to read this comment.)
...You will get moderated down instead.
Indy Media Watch-Proctologist of the Internet
6. Watch pr0n while driving. Err...on second thought, maybe in-car pr0n wouldnt be a such a great idea. It'd cause insurance premiums to skyrocket, because male drivers' hands sure wouldnt be on the steering wheel. ;)
Before we get too excited about weight reductions, increased technology or bragging rights, let's remember something.
Air-conditioning, power-steering and even ABS still aren't standard despite costing next to nothing at build time and being about as essential as you could get.
Manufacturers need to cripple cheaper cars to somehow justify the extra $100k plus you can spend on higher-end models. Otherwise people start saying why does this car cost twice as much when it isn't twice the car?
I suspect it will be a long time before we see this sort of thing in wide use.
Indy Media Watch-Proctologist of the Internet
You know, I'd love to hook up a digital video camera to that 1394 port and pray that the car can use it as its eyes and drive for me :)
I guarantee you more people know it as FireWire than know it as 1394.
Does this mean the Parents can see what trouble their kids are gettin into on their date via streaming video on tha Intarweb?
"Draco dormiens nunquam titillandus."
Anybody playing racing games can sure know the usefulness of the bumper cam.
Gives new meaning to the term "backseat driver".
I'm getting an image in my mind of my mother-in-law grinning and rubbing her hands together.
This could be that lean mean war driving machine that I have been looking for! Not that I can afford a new car, or a slightly used car, or a moderatly beaten car (I am in the market for a severly beaten near the point of death car).
Hell, who am I kidding, most of my vehicles have more electronic stuff in the stereo then they do in teh rest of the car.
Like arts? Like cheesy little Indie mags? Check out www.artwerkmag.com, and don't laugh at the bad coding please.
...so does iPod-cable equipped BMWs count?
Since the majority of weight is likely not from the control cabling, (though admittedly significant) running throughout the vehicle, but the high current buses for which there is no substitute for heavy copper conductors. Intelligent, local switching cannot eliminate this except in the most obvious cases.
"Oops, no tailights at this time because I need to run the air conditioner clutch"; P=IE always and forever.
They replace weight of copper with obfuscation and complexity, maintaining the aura of a sophisticated piece of machinery to justify a price and maintain a service centers and the American Way of Life; Automobiles and Monopolies.
Slashdot "libertarians": Small government for me, big government for those I disagree with. -1, I disagree with you
FireWire a BUS, not a car?
sorry, couldn't resist.
Just a reminder, if you depend on physical security and have 1394 ports powered, any 1394 device can read your system's memory through DMA.
Turn them off in the BIOS if this is an issue for you (the linked article suggest globs of epoxy...).
Coming soon to a sensationalist news story near you.
My God, it's Full of Source!
OUTSIDE_IP=$(dig +short my.ip @outsideip.net)
It would be cheaper, easier, and more healthy to get the driver to lose 50lbs before slimming down the car with new wiring.
When it comes to operational and safety components, I want things on their own subsystems. That means one set of wires for the brake lights, one set of wires for antilock brake control, one set of wires for the fuel tank level indicator, etc. etc.
If something gets in the wiring, I'd rather it knock out half my electrical than all of it. I'd also like key systems to be isolated from non-key systems. If my headlights develop a short and the wires overheat and melt, I don't want the wires leading to my starter motor to melt too.
Now, when it comes to entertainment, like radio, dvd player, etc., or comfort items, like climate control or the map lights, do whatever's cheapest to build, cheapest to repair, least likely to fail (bearing in mind that some wiring designs create single points of multiple failure).
Knowledge is how to play a game, intelligence is how to win, wisdom is knowing what game to play.
All this technology in the car and I still can't plug my laptop in and get the report as to why the check-engine light is on, and I still can't swap general parts with my other car. I assume there are marketing reasons for those issues, but isn't there some standards committee who could oppose the situation? Diagnostics software/hardware and interchangeable parts are some useful and well understood computer features, are they not?
As others have mentioned, saving weight anywhere possible is a Good Thing (tm) in a car. Ligher weight means a higher power to weight ratio, which means a faster car at the same horsepower (or better mileage, if you're into that sort of thing). Don't believe me? Take a look at the Porsche GT3 RS. They went so far in removing weight that the Porsche emblem on the hood is a sticker! Traditionally, it's a plastic or metal badge, but they went all out in removing as much weight as possible from the GT3 for the RS revision. BMW went so far with the M3 CSL that they replaced the floor of its trunk with cardboard. The floor pan in the C6 Corvette is made out of balsa wood sandwiched between thin layers of aluminum. Obviously these cars aren't really going for gas mileage, but the principles are the same. Besides, as we move more and more towards hybrid or all-electric vehicles, a 50 pound saving in wiring gear means that you have 50 more pounds available for batteries or other electricity storage mechanisms, thus adding extra range to the car because you're adding more power reserves without adding any more weight.
The biggest hurdle here is not whether or not they can do it, but whether or not it gains acceptance. For example, Porsche has started using the MOST bus in recent model years for their audio equipment (they use Becker equipment, listed on that page), and it's difficult to find compatible aftermarket equipment. Firewire has the benefit of several years on the market already in various applications, so it's a well-known technology by now.
Actually it *is* a big leap forward in automotive electronics. Sure, fiber optics and serial transfer rates of 400Mbps is nothing new. But the PC and server markets usually adopt the latest and best technologies first. While other markets are subject to a "trickle" effect, adopting these technologies much more slowly.
I can't say for foreign (non U.S. vehicles) but most domestic vehicles have network communication speeds of less than a hundred kilobits/second. The reality is, there is more than one computer in most vehicles and they do not run on the same network. Almost always running on different networks at different speeds and protocols.
Multiple networks in an automobile is necessary due to current lack of bandwidth. It is unacceptable to have the steering wheel controls and OnStar chatter clogging the OBD II diagnostics. Things like sensors for collisions need to be able to trigger the airbags in time. A congested bus is no good for that. Only in recent years has effort been made to have faster, standardized, serial and unified networks in domestic automobiles.
CAN, (car-area-network) is one of those technologies yet still much much slower than 1394. And such technologies as CAN have only shown up in recent years of domestic production vehicles.
With the amount of bandwidth 1394 (let alone the standardization, oh wonderful standardization!) many more things are possible. Since everything would run off the same network, "theoretically" it would be cheaper to produce a car. Less wiring due to a serial network and less development for multiple protocols and isolated networks. (Though this savings will likely *not* be passed on to the customer.)
This has huge implications for 3rd party development as well. Since a standardized physical layer is a big step, it will be easier to develop for the network. If you have ever installed a car stereo you know it's a pain in the ass and different for almost every vehicle.
Imagine taking your head unit, plugging into 1394 and that's it. In this scenario the speaker system is also digital and also apart of the network - installation would be a breeze. Other things could happen, like your iPod communicating with your head unit. No longer will the BMW drivers feel they are superior. (Except they will still have a better car than most) In addition, all the fancy LCD screens on head units today could give you real time OBD information.
Some cars have a sensor for when your gas cap is open but only show the "check engine light" or something similar. Well your stereo head unit could read these messages off the network and actually display in text "Gas cap is open stupid."
I think this is great news. Other auto manufactures wanting to stay competitive (or merge) will follow suit. Things can only get better.
I for one welcome our new high-bandwidth automobile network overlords.
Nissan Exhibits IEEE 1394-Compatible Car
Hey, I'm all for retro, but what is IEEE doing trying to set specs for compatibility with the 14th century? We hadn't even harnessed electricity back-
[GONG!]
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Bleah! Heh heh heh... BLEAH BLEAH!!! Ha ha ha ha...
I use my rear vision and side mirrors instead.
Si tacuisses philosophus mansisses. If you had kept quiet, you would have remained a philosopher.
Its all fun and games, but we all know that fiber cannot be bent more thant 30-45 degrees directly (but rather gradualy) and even then it has to be encased in some sort of polymer/plastic armor to protest it. But the best part comes when you take it to your redneck mechanic and he just yanks the cabe and breaks it in half, somehow i dont think you would be paying 2000$ to fusion weld the cable? Or better scenario is if one of the laser diodes fails (happens over time, it is a diode, after all) after 10 ish years? Can anyone say forced upgrade? BTW isnt Fiber sensitive to constant vibration?
:)
I know im going all negative, dont get me wrong, i see nothing in implimenting this, i simply believe that this should be thought out more, especially if youre forced to get new cables/comm units ONLY from Nissan (due to DMCA?).
Yeah there may be some sp errors, im in a hurry, and its the content that matters
Live for the present, learn from the past, and dream of the future!
You can find the actual specifications involved here: http://www.ami-c.org/
400 miles/sec on the freeway. fun stuff.
oh wait, wrong measurement....
I really hate to contradict the pervious post because it has some interesting ideas....none of which will actually make cars any safer, or for that matter easily maintained. The primary thing that people forget is that almost all crashes that occur are driver error. Having numerous camera's on your car will not prevent you from rear ending the guy in front of you. And as to the point about reduced maintainance remember that although you gotten rid of all that nasty copper wiring and those pesky air flow reducing mirrors (They'll rue the day they cost me .00001 of a gallon in fuel efficiency!) you now have to worry about repairing multiple camera's all of which involve high tech electronics. Oh and a final point, although it would be great to know what precisely is wrong with my car remember that in order to measure that you need a butt load of sensors, which themselves will weigh down the car (gasp!) further and require maintenance. Just because it's high tech doesn't mean it's a good idea. Simpler can be better.
Put all the LED's in some central part of the car and just pipe the light out to the headlights and tail lights. Switch the signals centrally, so you can use less bulbs (light all three brake lights with a single (plus backup) LED, a single signal light, etc...) The mounting for the lights in the back is then much lighter, and there is no need to route copper power wires back there. Reduced, power, reduced components, reduced weight.
LED car lights are almost always clusters, because a single LED isn't bright enough.
And, other than side markers/center brake light and some higher-end cars, LEDS aren't used much to start with.
I use Macs to up my productivity, so up yours Microsoft!
Instead of just "check engine" ... how about a dashboard that says: "um, excuse me, this is your engine, I'm running OK, but cylinder 4 has poor ignition, probably needs a new spark plug lead." or "Hi, you've cracked a cylinder head, kiss your wallet goodbye."
never going to happen... they already have those devices (to some extent) at the service station for a reason.
...you can run optical to various points around the car, and then tap off it for whatever device you want, rather than dedicating a particular color/gauge wire, that needs decoding later.
Want to make a base model SUX2008? One domelight slave assembly that grabs the optical harness. Want a HiLux SUX2008 instead? No problem - same harness, just tap in with 3 more domelight modules and a connection for a DVD unit and you're done.
Hahaha. The funniest joke is that you got modded -1 Flamebait.
I drove a car for a few years in Houston with no AC (in the summer thank you very much), and I got by. So I'll brook no talk about AC being an essential part of a car.
ABS maybe (though I'm not even sure there), but not AC.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Instead of just "check engine" ... how about a dashboard that says: "um, excuse me, this is your engine, I'm running OK, but cylinder 4 has poor ignition, probably needs a new spark plug lead."
Most newer cars already do self-diagnosis, but there's no way the manufacturers will let the car tell the owner what's wrong. They want you to take it to the dealership so they can fix it.
I bought the Honda service manual for my 2000 Prelude. It had instructions for shorting a connector which would cause the check engine light to flash. I could count the flashes and look it up in the manual. It would actually tell me which cylinder was having the problem and what the most likely causes were, just like your example.
47% of all statistics are made up on the spot.
Supposedly the 1394b protocol can reconfigure its bus if a node goes down and the bus is looped. Suppose you have a short in your system or a sensor goes out ... the vehicle could keep functioning with this reconfiguration utility.
A new SAE standard was just approved specifying the Vehicle Systems protocol on top of the 1394 bus. 1394 is replacing the MIL-STD-1553B bus in the aerospace industry for its redundancy management features and high bandwidth, and can be found on the new F-35 Joint Strike Fighter.
Now all we need is some SNMP OIDS and we're set =)
Instead of just "check engine" ... how about a dashboard that says: "um, excuse me, this is your engine, I'm running OK, but cylinder 4 has poor ignition, probably needs a new spark plug lead." or "Hi, you've cracked a cylinder head, kiss your wallet goodbye."
I see you're are trying to drive your car. Would you like me to take over for you?
I got really pissed the first time I noticed a ding on my door from some other door. Maybe w/ a tivo type system w/ this car, I can finally get the plates of the car who dinged me, and have the 'accident' on tape.
I didn't rtfa though and don't know if there are any cameras looking out 360 from the car.
Neil is that you? Yeah yeah, it's me... Neil...
Well, my VW Golf, rated as 'simple' car already has that... There are multiple CPU's inside the car and the motor management computer gives feedback about possible car problems via a LED-screen... I once had a broken air-intake-sensor and it caused the car to put itself in 'safe mode' limiting my speed to 90 kph and displaying a warning. Depending on the driving style and state of the engine, the maintenance sign is displayed at different mileages (max. 30.000km) and severe errors are marked with yellow (moderate) and red (severe) color codes. All warnings inform the driver what problem is occuring. The dealer can read out exactly what component failed with a special connector. Btw, all the dashboard IS digital, despite the analogue intrument panel, all the electronics steering that ARE digital. Analogue displays are more easy to read than digital onces (easier on the eye) and thus are mph and rpm displayed analogue, although the info is available digitally.
"...to about one-half the weight..."
When will you people ever learn how to speak english?
1394b is a significant enhancement to the basic 1394 specification that enables speed increases to 3.2 Gigabits/sec, supports distances of 100 meters on UTP-5, plastic optical fiber. (copper version is stuck at 800)
1 0
http://www.1394ta.org/Technology/About/faq.htm#
Democracy Now! - uncensored, anti-establishment news
ok - $400 isn't a lot of money for the lifetime of the car.
But if you are talking about using, say, 5% less fuel, then it might be worth it on an environmental level.
Then again...what about the energy and environmental economics of metal wiring versus optical fiber and various optoelectronics.....
I live in the UK. AC is a luxury item still sold on cars here because 95% of the year, you just don't need it. Different temperature /humidity range in green and rolling England from desert conditions in Australia/southern USA etc. "Essential" is what our agreed safety requirements are. I drive a 1965 Singer Gazelle and get on just fine without AC, ABS, no power steering, any computers and a total of two electrical fuses :-) I'd be sad but would accept if people said that a minimum safety requirement meant certain kinds of braking mechanism etc which meant I had to adapt or take my car off the road. But the call for comfort devices as essential, well, that's all relative I think. We can all find old photos of people trundling around severe conditions in open Land Rovers, Model T Fords, etc.
Nissan Motors has been for many years trying to bully and harass a small business owner by the name of Mr. Nissan, who registered nissan.com for his computer company, before Nissan Motors had ever considered having a web presence.. htm
Nissan Motors was stupid and slow, but they felt that by paying enough money to lawyers to harass this small business owner, they could intimidate him into handing over what did not belong to them, the nissan.com domain.
This is a well-known and unfortunate story, it's been featured on TechTV and other places, more info here:
http://www.ncchelp.org/The_Story/the_story
Even though my last car was a Nissan, I decided I won't be buying from them again after learning of their behavior.
I urge you to boycott Nissan, and to write to Nissan motors exlaining to them that you don't support corporate thuggishness.
In-car networks are fine - they've been used for ages. CAN (controller area network) are used not just for non-critical systems but for all sorts of things like braking, gears and the rest, and this is what its designed for. I'm just wondering whether (as it seems above), 1394 is being used for all this too. CAN doesn't have the bandwidth for streaming video etc but do you want to put your life in the hands of a multimedia-protocol when you're bootin down the road (Not much use having Ally MacBeal playing as you're careering into a wall)? ...
Or have I got this all wrong? I now that the CAN spec allows for flexibility in the physical network layer and upper layers? Is this a case of both standards being used but operating on different levels (doubtful though, since CAN imposes data-rate constraints)? Or is there two systems? The critical network and the frivolous network?
Or is it just that 1394 matches CAN for reliability, stability, simplicity
"... always going forward 'cause we cant find reverse! "
The prototype is equipped with 7 cameras on the body and a 12-inch LCD monitor in the front and another in the rear seat area.
You'll never need to look out the window again.
it doesn't work very well. you get a break in this cable anywhere along its length and you'll probably end up stripping out all fibre and replacing it all. it's very difficult to track down the break if you can't see it - even the specialist testing tools that bounce light off the break and measure time/distance are only accurate to 10 feet or so - not much use in a wiring loom hidden behind the dash.
next time you have a fender bender you could end up rewiring your car...!
and here I thought a car manufacturer was opening up their onboard computer to the end user.... just another gimick rear view camera.
Give it a few years; within 10 years, I'm expecting the majority of car lights (including headlamps and taillamps) to be LED-based. The advantages are just way too many to resist; the only downside right now is cost (and, to a certain extent, white LED brightness when speaking of headlamps) and cost is dropping rapidly.
That said, the idea is still dumb because the clusters of light-pipes would be more hassle than mounting the LEDs remotely and powering them; you don't need a single wire per LED, just 2 or 3 wires per cluster (depending on whether switching is local or remote). Light pipes would force you to require more LEDs (transmission losses), plus you do need to be able to run almost all lights simultaneously (both turn signals for hazards, taillamps for brake depression, headlamps for night... there're situations where all of the cars lights would need to be on at once) which means that you can't use less LEDs anyway.
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Mod me down, you fucking twits. Go ahead. I dare you.
(I read with sigs off.)
...does it run Linux?
Dear aunt, let's set so double the killer delete select all
Thanks to the in-vehicle IEEE 1394 LAN... the front and the rear seat monitors can display various information simultaneously
"It has a DS-3 connection. We can access 7 different networks simultaneously."
Follow me
So, I'm no expert on optical fiber, but I know they used to be pretty fragile. I have spent enough time on vehicles' electrical systems to know that even thick copper stresses, cracks, and fails. Is there any concern that fiber may not be durable enough for a vehicle application?
"The application of optical fiber also means that the weight of the cables can be reduced to about one-half the weight of a conventional wiring harness."
They tried conductive fiber, but plastic doesn't conduct very well.
WTF? Optical fiber? That's like noodle spaghetti.
ITS stands for Intelligent Transportation Systems, not Intelligent Transport Systems. There is a whole world of ITS that very few people know about. To learn more maybe the ./ers should visit http://www.itsa.org/, or better yet visit a company that does ITS for a living, http://www.iteris.com/. There is even a national architecture standard available for all to use when planning and developing an ITS project. Visit http://itsarch.iteris.com/itsarch/ to get more information.
./ing.
Enjoy. The roads of the future are ITS based products and deployments. Infact, has anyone seen those little camera in the intersections? That is ITS. Has anyone seen those neat like weather stations along the roadside? That is ITS. Has anyone used a toll road automated pass system? That is ITS. Has anyone seen a commercial vehicle drive past an open port-of-entry while others have to stop? That is ITS.
The list goes on and on and on. Keep
Mormonboy
monitor to view the goods of the passenger... ;)
If only they'd toss on a mode so you could see what the check engine light really is...
Most cars have this. OBD-1/OBD-2 Honda's have a service connector that you can jump which will result in the CEL flashing error code stored on the ECU. It's a 2 pin connector located above the ECU which rests behind the passenger side kick panel.
Older Hondas have a led light on the ECU itself which flashes the code.
"Not to mention all the idiots who use words like boxen."
Anonymous Coward on Monday August 04, @06:49PM
I had firewire in my 1985 Oldsmobile Cutlass. And I have the burn marks to prove it.
bp
Part 1: Racing on Go-carts
Part 2: Safe driving on Go-Carts - remedial classes if you fail
Part 3: How to drive a car
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Quote of the day: Damn Karma Bonus, mod this overrated please
Knowledge is how to play a game, intelligence is how to win, wisdom is knowing what game to play.
Here in Collie-Fornia, display screens like that in the front seat have been illegal since the beginning of the year. While much of the motivation was televisions and DVD players that can distract the driver, it's also illegal for the passenger in the front seat to be using a laptop.
Bill Stewart
New Fast-Compression-only CPR http://preview.tinyurl.com/dy575ks
When did you first see a LAN in a car? A friend of mine had one at San Diego Usenix 1993. He was working on portable wireless data-transmission technology, and the alpha version of the box was in his trunk, with the beta version in a portable computer (too big to really call a laptop) in the front seat, and a thinwire ethernet neatly hidden away between them. We were able to telnet to Bell Labs research from there (didn't have a login on that machine, so we just tried "berferd"...
Bill Stewart
New Fast-Compression-only CPR http://preview.tinyurl.com/dy575ks
I can see it now; my brake lights flickering because I've got 15 torrents downloading.
To me, it seems like the car companies don't care that much about gas mileage. I read somewhere (I think it was in Adbusters) that the weight of the average new car has gone over 4000 lbs for the first time since the 1970s. To me this seems ridiculous, considering the increases in technology: aluminum alloys and plastic are replacing cast iron and steel, unibodies are replacing full frames, and rack-and-pinion steering systems are replacing recirculating-ball systems. Cars today are generally not much more fuel-efficient than they used to be; here is an example. Again, there have been many drastic improvements in technology: lighter materials, improved aerodynamics, computer-controlled fuel injection instead of carburetors. But somehow, regardless of how much technology they introduce, cars in the US still seem to mostly get between around 20 and 30 mpg. The Japanese companies are making some improvement, but most American cars don't seem much better than they were 50 years ago. I am really not that excited about the new hybrid cars; what good would new technology do if the car companies clearly aren't making good use of the technology they already have? I think that most of the early hybrid cars will be more efficient, then the later ones will only get about 30 mpg for some reason, and they will keep making them that way until we have a serious oil crisis.
If the dash board includes all the mirrors (multi-function screens), then the driver has to look in a lot fewer directions. Put the car in reverse and the three in dash screens show: left, middle and right rear views. All the views can be seen at once, rather than having to crane the head in different directions to see them all. Many older people especially have difficulty with the mobility required to safely back up a vehicle.
If you are looking in your rear view mirror in order to pass, or because or an interesting event is occurring there (event left as an excercise to the reader
The dash in the Toyota Echo was moved to the centreline in order to reduce the distance the eyes have to move to view the instruments. You can put the mirror displays wherever makes the most sense. Could even be in a HUD on the windshield, or There might be a whole new meaning to driving glasses, with important information projected on the screen there, regardless of where you are looking.
As for the parts being expensive, Electronics used to be expensive, but they are, naturally, very, very cheap. They will get far cheaper as volume increases, and you'll be able to get your cameras at the local NAPA shop. Most of the sensors have perfectly reasonable value in terms of engine control, and should be dirt cheap in volume. Mechanical systems that are expensive and far more custom. Most sensors are relatively cheap already, are solid state, and pretty durable. Compare Dual Holley carbs vs. fuel injectors with electronic sensors, and figure out which stays tuned longer, which gets better mileage (performs better air-gas mixture regulation), and which has lower total cost (once the maintenance is included in the mix.) I think you can add a truckload of sensors for the amount of labour you save.
Cars should include redundant sensors that vote, just like on more expensive vehicles, so that when one sensor fails, the system diagnoses it, and one can get it replaced at leisure without having the car misfire in the meantime.
Cars are going to get simple the way PC hardware is getting trivial. It is cheaper to throw out boards than to troubleshoot them in the PC world. Diagnosing a car should be a matter of understanding what fourty or fifty sensors are saying. Computers are probably better at that than humans, and will be able to give us reasonable diagnoses. Older cars with more primitive computers tend to give garbage diagnoses (not enough data...)
P.S. Silicon is cheap and light.
If you have a direct wire between two points you have three points of failure, the wire, the transmitter or the receiver. These are relatively predictable. It seems that with a packetized communications bus you also have the specter of a failure mode involving service dropping below a certain threshold. It would be cool if you could design an automotive control bus that would allow for signalling and control and then just be able to plug things into it. Want a nav system? Plug it in? Want to pipe your cell phone over the audio system? Plug it in (or connect via Bluetooth), need a tire pressure sensor? Plug it in. Hook the brakes up to it, steering, accelerator and everything else without having to worry about designing specific linkages or control systems.
cheap labor conservatives - they want to keep you hungry enough to be thankful for minimum wage.