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Tesla, Ford, Amazon Hint At Cloudy Future For Cars
Nerval's Lobster writes "The automobile, once the most analog of technologies, is rapidly becoming a smartphone on wheels: Amazon announced Feb. 13 that Ford SYNC Applink-equipped vehicles will include the Amazon Cloud Player, allowing drivers to access their music libraries via voice command or dashboard controls. Ford isn't the only automotive company seeking to integrate cloud computing into the driving experience. Tesla Motors' Model S electric sedan boasts a 17-inch capacitive touch-screen in place of the usual dashboard buttons and dials. And who could forget Google's self-driving car? This isn't a future everybody wants—there are more than a few wannabe Steve McQueens who won't feel complete unless they can stomp on a pedal connected to an internal-combustion engine, flick a physical dashboard knob to the radio station of their choice, and peel out their driveway in a cloud of burning rubber. But as the latest technology migrates into automobiles, it could well be the future we're going to receive."
Oh! I see what you did there!
it doesnt move depending on what mode my screen is in or require me to look to change the volume
To be honest I would trust amazon more than the average driver.
The main issue is probably privacy, but the internet is doing a good
job of getting rid of that anyway.
Except most of the manufacturers won't want to expend the effort to keep their old products up-to-date. Look forward to drive-by hackings of your buggy car firmware. And new web technologies relegating your $60k+ car to the status of a 5 year old PC.
What they are really afraid of is the fact that once cars become self-driving, no one will need to own one anymore.
Technology is actually upended the business model of the entire autoindustry. They might innovate themselves right out of business.
I mean seriously who cares about cloudplayer in a self-driving car? If it can drive itself I'll just leave my earbuds in.
The most common vehicle in 10 years will be the autonomous Dodge caravan, taxiing us all around. Rich people will have maybe their own auto-Bently's or something, but the rest of us will just share a car.
It already costs a good amount to get, for example, a basic replacement temperature control knob thing, whatever the hell the proper name for it is. I don't want to know what a 17" touchscreen will cost, even a decade into the future, just to get your fan/heater/AC controls working again. I really do not like the way cars are heading; even without the cost, who says I want all this bullshit? Seriously, the more computerized they make cars, the more revolting they get.
I agree. Cell phones and texting and all that jazz is making crashes more common. It's killing people, literally. It's as bad as driving drunk, some people have said. I just bought a '12 Civic Si and I plan on driving it for 10+ years, so I don't have to worry about tech ruining my ride. Stick shift n' clutch all the way, baby. Electronic doodads are just a sideshow anyways. The real advancement in automobile tech will be whatever energy source dethrones these godawful fossil fuels we use to power vehicles.
Entirely unrelated: the more digital cars get the more unreliable they will become.
You realize cars have been almost completely computer-controlled for about a decade? Digital isn't to be equated with unreliable, bad design is.
I have played with several touch screen interfaces on cars. I am most experienced with the one in my 2006 Prius. I have also played with them in the Fisker Karma and the Tesla Model S.
It depends on how the touch screen is implemented. The touch screen in my Prius is actually fairly well designed, with most of the important buttons on the edge of the screen. The distraction caused by it is fairly minimal. When playing with the Tesla model S I noticed that they did something similar. The buttons are also fairly large and generally around the outside edge and many of the controls can easily be assigned to the steering wheel.
I have seen other cars where the touch screen is unusable (i.e. the Fisker Karma). The touch screen on the Fisker Karma is horrible and creates a lot of distraction since the buttons are tiny, inconsistent and the screen is very hard to impossible to see during the day. In order to use it one must spend a lot more time looking at it and the buttons are hard to impossible to hit while driving since they are small and have to be hit exactly. It's an accident waiting to happen.
At least with my Prius and the Tesla there is also voice input as well, though it is somewhat limited in my Prius and Tesla's is still under development from what I understand. My Prius also has good steering wheel support for most common functions so I rarely need to access the touch screen for things like the radio and climate control.
Even the touch interface on the Navigation system on my Prius is generally well thought out. My biggest problem with the touch screen on my Prius is that there is sometimes noticeable lag. When I played with the Tesla there was no lag.
On the Tesla one can easily assign different tasks to the steering wheel with no more distraction than looking at the speedometer since the menus are placed to the sides of it. On the Tesla the navigation map is also displayed just to the left of the speedometer as well so one doesn't have to look at the main display.
As far as cloud support, users have already figured out the interface to use Tesla's cloud services in order to access the car, including downloading real-time data. Users have also started creating web based applications for the Tesla. It also looks like Tesla is using the QT toolkit for their touch screen if the web browser identifier string is any indication.
This post is encrypted twice with ROT-13. Documenting or attempting to crack this encryption is illegal.
That's some impressive FUD you've got going, there. But that's all it is.
http://www.usacoverage.com/auto-insurance/how-many-driving-accidents-occur-each-year.html
And if it’s all summed up in a yearly basis,there are 5.25 million driving accidents that take place per year. Statistics show that each year,43,000 or more of the United States’ population die due to vehicular accidents and around 2.9 million people end up suffering light or severe injuries. In a certain five year period, there had been recorded a 25% of the driving population who encountered or were involved in car accidents. It is also affirmed that car accidents kill a child every 3 minutes.Statistics on the number of car accidents taking place in every state or country is normally based on medical or insurance records filed.
But you're right, I'm sure. People are /such/ good drivers. There's no way we could improve on those numbers. It's probably not even worth trying.
Road deaths happen mostly to idiots and whomever they hit, and this is cleaning the gene
There fixed.
On another note, how about we start this cleansing with you?
... whatever
The biggest problem I see with these systems is very rapid obsolescence. You'll generally replace a phone or tablet a lot more often than a car. There should be a standard port to attach a tablet to and the car manufacturer can offer software for all the major platforms, or you can choose to use something else. Instead we seem to be getting a bunch of built in tablets running code that we have no control over and can't replace. Is anybody sorting this out?
It's not just the touchscreen either as it'll be a whole assembly, which certainly will not scale in the consumer's favor 10 years after the car was built.
I just want a plain AFFORDABLE electric car. 100 miles a day on an over night charge. $20000 or less. What is so hard about that?
No hour on a horse is ever wasted. Winston Churchill
I am an experienced mechanic who loves old cars. Your post is bullshit.
Those cars were simple, pretty, unreliable, maintenance-intensive, and did a fine job of killing their passengers in a crash. Their brakes were garbage (front drums, single master cylinders) which is why brake shops in mountainous areas were a common sight.
Your post is nonsense and deserves no respect. I grew up working on those rides. It's no accident that many modern owners update them so they actually steer and stop.
Feature bloat is not necessary, but sells cars. I can and do work on my modern vehicles and don't pay anyone else to wrench them. The way to repair modern vehicles reasonably is the same as ever. Use good parts from salvage with a few new bits as needed. I've built many cars and trucks for a used car lot where we did this. It's standard. I'd rather bolt on factory parts as assemblies to save time and labor, so salvage rules.
I'm disgusted with "mechanics" who won't learn modern systems. Modern hot rodders take full advantage of improved ignition control and fuel management, so there is no excuse for snivelling.
Modern CNC production methods are what make TODAY the new Golden Age of performance. It's cheaper and easier to maintain your beloved antiques than ever before. The aftermarket has plenty of support for whatever you want to do.
I'd get off your lawn but I can't find it and suspect it's located in Atlantis.
"This post is an artistic work of fiction and falsehood. Only a fool would take anything posted here as fact."