Michael Copeland at Fortune has his priorities straight. “In my rusted jalopy, a 1991 Volvo 240 sedan, I have installed the future,” he boasts. His use of the “f-word” tells you he’s not talking about a V8, forced induction or any other fossil fuel-sucking upgrade. What then? An EV conversion? That would be too interesting. Too car-related. No, Copeland’s future shock was a simple feat: “All it took was a friend whose iPhone came along for a ride.” His argument is the same tired trope we hear every time a business writer dips a toe in the product-analysis game: make it more iPod-phone-y!

when you think about it, the car is the ultimate mobile device. And automakers need to start acting more like consumer electronics companies if they don’t want to cede one of their last great opportunities to Apple, Research in Motion or Google [Ed: as if!].

Sigh. Didn’t we go through this when Thomas Friedman called for Steve Jobs to take over GM? Incidentally, whatever happened to the Draft Oprah movement?

Ford has announced that research conducted jointly with Auburn University shows the promise of GPS in enhancing active safety features like stability control. According to Ford’s press release:

Researchers have found potential for a GPS satellite to act as an early warning system that detects when a vehicle is about to lose control and communicate with the vehicle’s stability control systems and other safety features to prevent a rollover or other serious accident…Virtual reality tests show that GPS satellites can precisely monitor a vehicle’s motion, which could improve the speed and effectiveness of electronic stability control systems.

With so much attention focused on next-next-gen, alt-energy auto technology, we enjoy highlighting the incremental changes that are making good old internal combustion engines more efficient. The latest evolution to show up on our radar screen is BMW’s development of a host of measures [via Green Car Congress] which it hopes will someday reduce the inefficiencies of cold starts. Perhaps the easiest way of reducing low-temperature, high-friction starts is to encase the engine to slow down the engine cooling process (as well as insulating components that might otherwise need to be cooled). In fact, BMW has shown that with encapsulation, a 176 degree operating-temperature engine can keep its temperature as high as 104 degrees after 12 hours. But good luck trying to change your oil when your engine is surrounded by thermal materials.

Growing up my family owned a Jeep Wagoneer that consistently broke down towing our boat. My frugal parents couldn’t afford to have it repaired by a mechanic so my Pop dutifully bought the repair manual and spent his days off cursing under the hood in our driveway. He eventually grew so frustrated that he dropped a 500cu Cadillac engine in that old Jeep. Technology has made do-it-yourself repairs little more than nostalgic memories. Now it takes expensive diagnostic computers to identify why the light on the dash came on. And not only are the diagnostic computers expensive but in many cases the codes are proprietary. With recent dealership closures, congress has proposed legislation to protect consumers access to this critical repair information. HR 2057, the Rural Communities Stranded Without The Right To Repair Act would require auto manufacturers to make repair information and computer diagnostic codes available to the general public.

The Detroit News is reporting that Ford is in a legal battle to control key patents related to its Sync hands-free information system. John Berry, who was let go by Ford in July, developed Sync’s cell phone connectivity system, which allows features like 911 Assist, Vehicle Health Reports and Traffic, and Directions and Information Services. Ford wants Berry to sign off on the company’s application for patents related to these functions, but Berry won’t play ball. He says he’s “happy to license” the technology to Ford, but other automakers are rumored to be sniffing around as well. There’s plenty at stake in this squabble: if Ford loses these Sync capabilities, it loses one of its primary advantages in the marketplace. Not to mention its “anti-distracted-driving” leadership.

For $1,595, Ford will sell you a Blind Spot Information System (BLIS) which uses radar to detect vehicles approaching your “blind spot.” But, as Christopher Jensen points out at the New York Times, blind spots don’t have to exist in the first place. Summarizing an SAE paper on blind spot safety, he explains how to get rid of the pesky things.

“The driver leans his head against the driver’s window and sets the mirror so that the side of the vehicle is just visible. Then, the driver leans to the middle of the vehicle (between the front seats) and does the same thing with the passenger-side mirror.”

TTAC Commentator eggsalad writes:

In the 1950’s, everyone smoked. Car manufacturers installed electric cigarette lighters in every car. Not long after, a Very Smart Person took advantage of this universality and designed the Cigarette Lighter Plug. It was a brilliant way to get 12 volt power to all manner of accessories, from CB radios to cell phone chargers. Then folks stopped smoking. So many that car manufacturers eliminated the cigarette lighter as standard equipment. Some now offer an “ashtray delete” option. As drivers have all manner of accessories—GPS, radar detectors, Zunes, Nintendo DS, etc.—that the lighter socket itself remains. Now it’s just called a “power outlet.” Problem is, the 12 volt power outlet and its corresponding plug are absurdly large for their current functionality.

Electronic monitoring of motorists is gaining legitimacy, as the federal government explores a pay-per-mile road tax and California mulls pay-per-mile insurance. But will the possibility of improved efficiency and use-based taxation convince drivers to accept on-board electronic spies? Secretary of Transportation Ray LaHood has already expressed his fondness for pay-per-mile road taxation, and the Chicago Sun Times reports that he’s willing to pay participants nearly a grand to help him test the idea.

Motor Trend‘s Angus MacKenzie recently got some seat time in the new Shelby GT500, and calls it “a pretty impressive piece — fast, loud, and blessed with the best steering ever in an American Car.” “But,” writes MacKenzie, “the thing that annoys me most about the GT500 — about the whole 2010 Mustang range, for that matter — is the live rear axle. It’s the wrong technology, done for the wrong reasons; emblematic of the cynical ‘near enough is good enough’ attitude from Motown management that helped drive Detroit’s automakers into a ditch.” And thereby restarted a squabble that makes the global warming debate look like a lover’s spat.

In my many years as a ghostwriter for a leading exec of Volkswagen, there was one joke that was always shot down. Early VW navigation systems gave you the voice prompt “die Route wird berechnet.” Which translates to “the route is being calculated.” It could also be understood as “I’ll charge you for the whip.” My one-liner that a new VW comes with a factory-standard dominatrix was always suppressed. I wonder why.

I was reminded of my dark past when I opened Automobilwoche [sub] today, only to read that BMW intends to turn their Minis into a gabfest on wheels. Carrying the moniker “mission control,” electronics will listen to the traffic on the car’s CAN bus, and then the gizmo will drown you with clever remarks.

Whiskey Tango Foxtrot indeed. How could Toyota Prius, The Next Generation, not offer direct access to Apple’s technophile (technophobe?) gizmo? No USB paradise by the dashboard lights? True story, brought to you by PriusChat (motto: “Press our buttons”). “The USB integration won’t be available out of the factory until September, and it will only come with the Navigation option package that is available in the Prius III, IV, and V. Customers who buy their Navigation-equipped Prius before September will be able to have the USB kit installed at the dealer, but at their own expense. There are no specifics right now, but it looks like in September when the USB connectivity is added to the Navigation package, the price of the Navigation package will be going up. It hasn’t been established yet whether that price increase would be the same as the price a dealer will charge to install it, or if the dealer-installed USB will be more expensive.” It doesn’t take much Insight, or a Honda Odyssey without iPhone integration, to realize that this is a major marketing misstep by the ToMoCo. Did you know that Microsoft’s Zune can operate through your vehicle’s FM radio? Just sayin’.

When developing new car gadgetry, automakers are faced with making a very basic assumption about their potential customers. Are we the consumers willing to trade our fundamental, if somewhat-anarchistic, assumptions of freedom for some wimpy, gas saving benefit? From accident black boxes to driver-behavior monitors, most red-blooded pistonheads say, hell no! Apparently BMW reckons that more people want toys than want (perceived) freedom. And they’re developing an intelligent navigation system that will learn your driving habits to prove it.

The vocabulary used to classify hybrid drivetrains has been lagging considerably behind new developments, as Wikipedia’s article on the matter proves. The old parallel, serial, mild and plug-in hybrid categories do little to illuminate public understanding of the underlying technology, and much to confuse it. Enter the BYD Dual-Mode, VW “ Twindrive” and, now, the AVL “ Turbohybrid”. With cooperation from BMW, Bosch and LuK, AVL has developed a mild-ish hybrid drivetrain. The consortium claims it’s cheaper and more fun to drive than a “full hybrid” while offering nearly the same efficiency. Care to deep dive?

If you answered yes to both questions, chances are you’re feeling relatively isolated from the economic pressures of the recession. Congratulations! Now go treat yourself to one of these iPhone applications compiled by CarType. Thanks to the power of Steve Jobs you can now shop for car insurance, look up the lowest gas prices in town, receive RSS updates on cars for sale, receive press releases from MINI, VW and Mercedes Benz, calculate your mileage, look up EPA ratings, receive traffic alerts in a number of countries, and play a plethora of time-wasting games all from your phone. Delphi’s James Bond-like bluetooth control for complete vehicle systems (first teased a year ago) is, sadly, still not available on the consumer market.

The Truth About Cars: they’re hideously complicated devices that must be able to serve duty in every sort of meteorological condition. The controls required to help keep their owners comfortable in this huge and ever-changing range of temperatures and climatic conditions are subject to neglect, abuse and constant use. Not to mention simple human nature, which is simple, but not so easy to satisfy in any meaningful bio-mechanical way. So hats off to the designers, engineers and assembly workers who delivered unto us, the driving public, a sane, sensible way to control our own personal micro-climate. I present to you, gentle readers and humble auto industry-types, TTAC’s Top Ten HVAC controls 2009, with comments by our very own Best and Brightest. [Gallery below. Printed list and comments after the jump.]

Reuters reports that Toyota is set to introduce its own version of GM’s OnStar telematics-based service: Safety Connect. The news agency’s story emphasizes… safety. “The service… is designed to provide drivers with emergency support in the event of an airbag deployment or an accident, through embedded cellular technology and a satellite-based navigation system. The system-equipped vehicles also come with an SOS button, through which customers can communicate with emergency call centers for 24 hours a day. In the event a vehicle is stolen, the service also assists in tracking the location of the stolen vehicle.” The AP widens that remit. “The luxury Lexus version also includes driver convenience features such as driving directions and an advanced voice command program.” You hurt your what? (Enhanced voice recognition.) The official press release adds the finishing touch: the Lexus system will be called “Enform,” which sounds a bit like a feminine hygiene product to me. Anyway, there are ramifications here…

Life’s a drag. If you’re an automobile, the faster you go, the more of a drag it becomes. As early as the 1920’s, engineers realized that a car’s shape was no less important than an airplane’s; it determined the the automobile’s aerodynamic efficiency, which has a major impact on its fuel efficiency. (Cars may not have been born from jets, but the same rules apply.) For mass motoring, decades of cheap gas made automotive aerodynamics more of an optional art class than a required science. Now, with government regulators demanding maximum fuel efficiency, aerodynamics are back in play, headed for the mainstream. Active aerodynamics are taking center stage.

As the video proves beyond the shadow of a doubt, parallel parking is a cinch. For those who nonetheless feel challenged by the maneuver, and view it as scarier than crossing the 38th parallel, Ford has a cure: Ford plans to offer two Lincoln models in 2009 that can park themselves, Marketwatch reports. Parallel parking will get as boring as pushing a button. The miracles will be on display at the Detroit Auto Show. The parallel parking robot will be an option on the Lincoln MKS sedan and MKT CUV for the 2009 model year. For the TTAC B&B, this news is a yawner, as automatic parallel parking attendants were introduced by Toyota in their Prius as far back as 2004, followed by Lexus, BMW, the VW Touran, and possibly others.

Google’s recent release of its Android operating system is keeping the telephones-do-everything trend alive and well. Google already supplies its Google Map data to third-party navigation developers, but Android’s open development strategy is fueling the car-phone fusion like never before. And as with all tech innovations (especially the open development kind) there are as many head scratchers as killer apps among the Android car programs previewed by the Headlight blog. One concept that makes a lot of sense is the KEI, which uses 128-bit encrypted connectivity to connect your car with your phone. KEI allows your Android-equipped phone to unlock or start your car wirelessly, with a wide range of diagnostic functions also possible down the road. Everyone loses a key at some point, so merging phone and key functions makes tons of sense. Which must be why Delphi has already previewed a similar app for the iPhone.

Nuclear fusion is the preferred deus ex machina in the minds of some who long for cheap, abundant energy, although fusion will never be either. The challenge: containing the plasma fuel that heats to millions of degrees inside a “bottle” made of magnetic fields produced by a superconducting magnet kept at absolute zero a few feet away. The concept’s been likened to trying to hold water inside rubber bands. A press release from MIT News entitled “New Insights on Fusion Power” celebrates the kind of esoteric advances that indicate that fusion lies somewhere beyond the Hubble Deep Field in the cosmology of future energy sources (i.e. just as distant as when I first wrote about it in 1978).

Recently, firms like Tesla have launched themselves into the public eye by trumpeting the meme that Silicone Valley’s innovation-driven culture will show the way for Detroit which remains mired in old-economy faults. And it’s a storyline that has yielded millions in venture capital and free media attention. The New York Times’ Thomas Friedman unintentionally brought this line of thinking to its point of absurdum by calling on Steve Jobs to “do national service and run a car company for a year.” But as our ongoing Tesla Death Watch consistently demonstrates, Silicon Valley automakers could still stand to learn a thing or two about, you know, actually producing cars from even Detroit’s most dismal. And then there’s this story from The San Jose Mercury detailling the extent to which Silicon Valley is dependent on business from Detroit. “As soon as the automotive industry coughs, a lot of other companies get a cold,” Gartner analyst Thilo Koslowski tells the Merc. “That includes companies in the semiconductor industry and that includes a lot in the Bay Area… It’s a relatively big market for them in Silicon Valley.”

True dat. We’re looking for one of our Best and Brightest to write 800-word automotive videogame reviews for TTAC. We’ll pay $100 per published piece plus free videogames (disclaimed at the bottom of the review, of course). Send your magnum opus (within the body of an email) to robert.farago@thetruthaboutcars.com with SAMPLE REVIEW in the subject bar. Rate the game from one to five stars and include a one sentence summation. Again, the review must be exactly 800 words (not including title, star ratings and summation sentence). Remember: ‘tude counts. Oh, and Midnight Club: Los Angeles is out today. Here’s a review style you shouldn’t copy, from Streetfire: “I have to say that from what I’ve seen so far in the last 11 hours it is pretty impressive. It came as no surprise that the party was held in the heart of Hollywood at the Virgin Megastore and featured a performance by the Eagles of Death Metal. I’m personally a big fan of the fact that the game has a 97 song track list with music of all types, and a large number from the SoCal area. Being from Los Angeles, it’s pretty cool to be playing a badass car game that let’s me drive through the streets of Hollywood doing all of the things I WISH I could get away.” With. Although that’s one way to avoid ending a sentence with a preposition…

Midnight Club: Los Angeles Trailer 4

Warning: you might want to turn down your volume when that Audi TT with a new turbo upgrade hits full boost. The last time I heard a whine like that was when the Pratt & Whitney engines on my jet spooled-up, developing 21k lbs of thrust apiece; and it only does 0 – 60 mph in about 15 seconds (and then 60 – 250 mph in another 15). Which brings me to my question. I've seen many a car "tuned" beyond belief, many with ridiculous body kits to emphasize the fact. How much tuning on a car it too much? When does the tuning destroy the car's original character and turn it into a peaky, unreliable mess? I like it when people modify cars, especially when it builds upon the car's strengths and tones down its weakness (like the above Audi). But looking around me on Friday nights, sometimes I think it gets a bit extreme. What say you?

BMW's Kinetic Energy Recovery System (KERS) is an F1 innovation: a regenerative braking system which generates electricity to boost power. And while it helps F1 look green and well-behaved, the technology's run into a few… issues. Like when the Red Bull team had to vacate its headquarters due to a fire scare. Or when a BMW-Sauber team technician got zapped by the system in the video above. But crazy innovators that they are, BMW hasn't been scared off from KERS by mere video footage of its mechanic being lifted off the ground by a few thousand volts. Auto Motor und Sport reports that BMW is looking into developing hybrid options for its M-line. Since standard parallel hybrid systems don't offer much performance boost, Bee-Em are looking at using KERS on road-going models. After all, KERS gives F1 cars a .2 to .3 second per lap advantage. Wow! Of course the fact that KERS is five times lighter and smaller than any comparable road car's hybrid elements means expense will be high (as it always is for those precious extra tenths of a second). Accordingly, BMW isn't announcing when KERS will arrive for M-line vehicles. Shocking! (Video Hat Tip to Jalopnik)

With Hail Mary PHEVs and two-mode V8s leading the American automakers' charge towards fuel-efficiency, its easy to call Detroit's executives out of touch. But it turns out that the idea of applying simple fuel-saving technologies across product lines is finally taking hold in the corporate offices of our domestic auto firms. The Detroit Free Press reports that executives at Ford, Chrysler and GM predict that stop-start technology will find its way into every domestically-produced vehicle within the next five to ten years. Speaking at NextCruise, the eco-friendly sister event to the Woodward Dream Cruise, Detroit's finest fell over themselves trying to prove their companies' commitment to adding this (relatively) low-tech, fuel-saving technology. GM's Micky Bly went one further, saying future GM vehicles will incorporate weight-saving materials currently found in hybrids. Careful on that limb, boys.