With cars though, the auto industry seems to be stuck in a rut, merely updating the same old same old rather than replacing the lot of it with superior technology. Sure, there have been some minor advances with hybrid engines for a greener environment, but that's only been a small step towards the future. Just step into the driver's seat of your typical late-model car or truck and you're confronted with a big wheel for steering that is mechanically connected to a rack, wheels and tires. Look left and right and you'll see some glass mirrors that are good for reflecting images of the things behind you. And most of the cars today still come with analog dials, while the few that do have handy and intuitive touch screen interfaces do so as a nicety, not for primary operation. If it ain't broke, don't fix it?
If you want to steer a car today, it's by way of a straight forward physical connection. You are connected to the steering wheel, the steering wheel is connected to a shaft, and the hand bone s connected to the arm bone... It's simple, has worked for a hundred years and it'll work for a hundred more. But what if there's more?
But while the conventional mechanical method is a proven and reliable system (and let me remind you, so was the old tube TV), it does have its drawbacks. Firstly, the whole thing weighs a hell of a lot. Pre-power steering, you needed to gulp down a can of spinach in order to turn the wheel when parking. Power steering - a major advancement in the auto industry, thirty years ago - is a system that both adds a lot of weight and drains power. Also, technology had a hand in improving on steering wheel design by making the steering column collapsible and adding air bags so you're not impaled by it in a frontal collision, or your teeth aren't unceremoniously removed by the wheel itself. But there's still a big spike between your legs (gently, boys) and it's pointing straight at your chest with a big, round tooth smasher on top. Oh, and that was a long time ago, too.
Now, as anyone who's every played a video game can tell you, driving a car with your thumbs on a stick or hand on a joystick is pretty darn easy. "Drive by wire" takes the mechanical operation of a vehicle and puts it in the hands of a computer commanded by an operator - or driver, in this case. The theory behind drive by wire in an actual vehicle is much the same: you make an input on a stick that is recognized by a computer then sent down a wire to some actuators that turn the wheels. It's a system that's light and compact, requiring a couple of high tech boxes at each end and some cables connected to a computer. It means no more heavy mechanical linkages, metal spikes lurking behind your wheel - no steering wheel at all, potentially.
Several manufacturers in the nineties experimented with a joystick setup. Saab had a proof-of-concept 9000 on display as early as 1992 which had a joystick where the gear shift would be. More recently, BMW has made some beautiful looking drive-by-wire prototypes that simply scream Car 2.0, freeing up valuable dashboard real estate and allowing more room for safety and greater visibility in the process.
But as jet fighters, space ships and even passenger ferries have been employing by-wire operation for decades, the car is still just second-generation caveman with the old wheel in the helm.
Rear and side view mirrors have been around almost as long as the car itself - it didn't take them long to figure out that tunnel vision and driving didn't mix. Of course, mirrors have drawbacks in that they're not "life sized" and thus, blind spots. Also, a car's body, sides and roof structure also make for opaque impediments that even a mirror can't see through. Headrests and even passengers' heads get in the way, too. So we shoulder check before changing lanes or making a turn. Or we're supposed to, anyway.
The rear facing camera has made its way into cars as a way to mitigate the rearview mirror's shortcomings - but as a safety augmentation, not as a replacement for the mirror itself. And there's still no camera option to replace the sideview mirror, but there should be. Instead of having mirrors perched on our doors, how about a wide angle camera lens the size of a thumb tack? This would net a larger field of view in a small package aiding in aerodynamics and aesthetics in the process. Add another one on your trunk lid and you have the perfect solution. Display it all in the dash on a full HD widescreen display and you've no more blind spots, you rarely take your eyes off the road for but a second, and suddenly parallel parking is as simple as one-piece Tetris.
Cameras seem like an obvious solution and have many advantages over normal mirrors - but they also have their drawbacks that legislators won't ignore. For example, unlike a camera, a mirror doesn't stop working when there's an electrical failure. Then again, neither does your iPhone, which only needs a wee battery to keep it operating. Power a camera system with a back-up battery and the problem is pretty much solved, no? What's more likely is a camera system in place as a redundancy to mirrors, then a whole lot of studies showing that drivers don't actually rely on the mirrors anymore.
If one were to design a car from scratch with no pre-conceived ideas on how it would look or function, the so-called "suicide doors" would instantly make it to the drawing board. Suicide doors are doors hinged in reverse from that of a conventional door; they open "backwards," so to speak, and make access to your seat much easier. If you've ever stepped into a London cab you have found it so easy to get in and out, because the door doesn't force you through a funnel to get to the seat. They're just better, period.
Carbon Motors new purpose-built police car will have this feature just to make it easier to throw perps into the back. This seemingly obvious design has recently returned to fashion on cars such as the Mazda RX-8, Honda Element and the newer Rolls Royces.
It has the unfortunate name stemming from the notion of jumping from a moving car and getting smacked by the door. Just look at any James Dean movie from the '50s. But the reality is that the backward facing door had mounting problems back in the day. When cars were relatively new, door latch design wasn't great, and suicide doors had a tendency to fly open on a whim, also aiding to the name. Likewise, the structural stiffness of the chassis ore than a little questionable, and car doors would often sag not fit, unless mounted forward. The front hinged solution was adopted, and was never really revisited until recently, now that common sense and super rigid manufacturing materials are part and parcel with automobile construction.
Believe it or not all of these design elements could have been on our cars for decades. It is not a lack of technology holding us back, but the legislation that constrains their evolution. In Europe, Rolls Royce had to go to great lengths with the authorities to prove their suicide door could not open on the move and cause injury, even though I'm sure none of us here can remember the last time a car door flew open due to a latch problem.
And drive-by-wire seems like the next logical step for steering to some, but clearly it's too "radical" for the powers that be, as if only fighter pilots and 12-year-old Gran Turismo experts can wrap their heads around joystick control. Fair enough, some people just wouldn't get it... though anyone under the age of 52 probably would. They're the same ones who fgured out how to program a VCR. For now, inroads in campus runabouts like the GM EN-V will have to make drive-by-wires the norm, not the oddity, before you get to take your joystick out on the highway.
Until governments recognize the need for advancement in order to actually improve safety rather than just mitigate the shortcomings of last year's models, reduce weight and keep costs down, Car 2.0 won't happen until Car 1.1, 1.2 and 1.3 prove viable. It's the slow road, but at least the Gran Turismo nuts have something to look forward to on their 52nd birthday.
If one were to design a car from scratch with no pre-conceived ideas on how it would look or function, the so-called "suicide doors" would instantly make it to the drawing board. Suicide doors are doors hinged in reverse from that of a conventional door; they open "backwards," so to speak, and make access to your seat much easier. If you've ever stepped into a London cab you have found it so easy to get in and out, because the door doesn't force you through a funnel to get to the seat. They're just better, period.
Carbon Motors new purpose-built police car will have this feature just to make it easier to throw perps into the back. This seemingly obvious design has recently returned to fashion on cars such as the Mazda RX-8, Honda Element and the newer Rolls Royces.
It has the unfortunate name stemming from the notion of jumping from a moving car and getting smacked by the door. Just look at any James Dean movie from the '50s. But the reality is that the backward facing door had mounting problems back in the day. When cars were relatively new, door latch design wasn't great, and suicide doors had a tendency to fly open on a whim, also aiding to the name. Likewise, the structural stiffness of the chassis ore than a little questionable, and car doors would often sag not fit, unless mounted forward. The front hinged solution was adopted, and was never really revisited until recently, now that common sense and super rigid manufacturing materials are part and parcel with automobile construction.
Believe it or not all of these design elements could have been on our cars for decades. It is not a lack of technology holding us back, but the legislation that constrains their evolution. In Europe, Rolls Royce had to go to great lengths with the authorities to prove their suicide door could not open on the move and cause injury, even though I'm sure none of us here can remember the last time a car door flew open due to a latch problem.
And drive-by-wire seems like the next logical step for steering to some, but clearly it's too "radical" for the powers that be, as if only fighter pilots and 12-year-old Gran Turismo experts can wrap their heads around joystick control. Fair enough, some people just wouldn't get it... though anyone under the age of 52 probably would. They're the same ones who fgured out how to program a VCR. For now, inroads in campus runabouts like the GM EN-V will have to make drive-by-wires the norm, not the oddity, before you get to take your joystick out on the highway.
Until governments recognize the need for advancement in order to actually improve safety rather than just mitigate the shortcomings of last year's models, reduce weight and keep costs down, Car 2.0 won't happen until Car 1.1, 1.2 and 1.3 prove viable. It's the slow road, but at least the Gran Turismo nuts have something to look forward to on their 52nd birthday.
To me, the more important question is, where is the Flying Car we were promised all those years ago?
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