Tricked-Out Cars Trickling Down

Good sends us to an IBTimes article on the expanding trend for more options for electronic gadgetry — telematics — in cars. Manufacturers are including more high-tech options in more models, including low-end models, as component prices drop and as the car makers attempt to sell to a demographic that has grown up surrounded by personal electronics. According to a telematics analyst, Bluetooth hands-free modules for cell phones will be available on more than a third of car models sold in the US in 2007, and auxiliary jacks for iPods in nearly half. From the article: "One of the industry's more advanced systems will be Ford's Sync, which connects digital music players to the car's voice-control communications system and reads aloud cell-phone text messages and has 20 preset text-message responses... The flash memory-based system, controlled through voice commands and buttons on the steering wheel, is based on a Microsoft Corp. operating system for cars."

Comments

stupid

[Pojut]

and auxiliary jacks for iPods in nearly half

Do they literally mean iPod specific, or do they simply mean that factory radios with aux line-inputs will be more commonplace?

Christ I hate how people think that iPod's are the only thing someone would hook up to car's sound system via aux-in.

Just what we need

[spun]

More gadgets distracting people as they drive.

Neat...

[sporkme]

Fun gadgets are great, but how about making vehicles more user-serviceable? I can fix anything on my '96, but my mom's^w girlfriend's '06 is a mystery to me. On many Kia models, you can't even change the oil without special tools.

"Perfection is achieved, not when there is nothing more to add, but when there is nothing left to take away." -- Antoine de Saint-Exuper

Oh, and check my spinners!

The other good old days

[EmbeddedJanitor]

Remember when people designed cards for driving? All this in-car entertainment etc cannot be really contributing to good driving.

As for voice commanded anything, watch http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IkeC7HpsHxo . I've worked with vehicle electronics for quite a while, any wonder that I drive a 1980s car with manual everything?

Re:The other good old days

[LoudMusic]

Remember when people designed cars for driving? All this in-car entertainment etc cannot be really contributing to good driving. Instead of rolling entertainment I'd like to see accident avoidance technology become more common place. I think it's Mercedes Benz that has all kinds of road sensors for keeping the car between the lines and at safe distances from the vehicle in front. Makes more sense to me than hands free telephone in the car.

Driving a hybrid I'd like to see GPS data used to improve efficiency of hybrids and other efficient vehicles. Knowing what's coming up, as far as hills and such, could allow the car to better handle cruise control to make better use of the electric motor / batteries. All the technology is in the car already, it just doesn't talk to each other yet.

"Tricked Out" BAH!

[iminplaya]

That's all rice boy stuff. Where are the Holleys, the Edelbrocks, the Hooker headers, the Koni shocks, the glass packs, the high compression engines??? That's what makes a tricked out car, not decals and cell phones, and home theater(in the car??? Sheez). Just give me one that will do the driving for me.

The electronics I really want

[Bryansix]

I want auto manufactures to include a device to actually read the information stored in the Engine Management computer and allow you to download it an analyze it on your home computer. I mean it really sucks that all cars contain an OBD-II connector but don't come with a way to use it. Why should I have to spend almost $200 for a device like this when it could just be included with the car and almost no cost to the manufacturer?