Talk to the Chair: Ford Patents Voice-activated Seats

Apparently, the increasingly complex array of buttons on the side of a modern driver’s seat has become too much for humans to process. There’s just too many ways to adjust our seating position (though not in this writer’s car).

What if, instead of pressing buttons and switches, we could bark orders or use a touchpad? That’s the future Ford envisions.

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Piston Slap: Relevant Lessons Taught by Panther Love

Hey, it coulda happened!

TTAC commentator HeeeeyJake writes:

Hey Sajeev,

I love the column and I’m a daily TTAC reader, though I rarely comment. We have been a Panther household since the mid nineties, and have had great luck with our vehicles thus far. My parents had two ex-Budget rental Town Cars, a white ’93 with blue interior, and a medium willow green ’96 with that greyish-beige. I had a pearlescent silver ’91 in high school with black interior and a black canvas top (I added ’02 Cartier wheels , P71 front springs, and a dual exhaust with turbo mufflers). All were zero-problem vehicles. Which brings us to our current Town Car, an ’07 Signature Limited, fresh out of warranty, which is also an ex-rental, but I do not know which company.

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  • V8fairy Not scared, but I would be reluctant to put my trust in it. The technology is just not quite there yet
  • V8fairy Headlights that switch on/off with the ignition - similar to the requirement that Sweden has- lights must run any time the car is on.Definitely knobs and buttons, touchscreens should only be for navigation and phone mirroring and configuration of non essential items like stereo balance/ fade etc>Bagpipes for following too close.A following distance warning system - I'd be happy to see made mandatory. And bagpipes would be a good choice for this, so hard to put up with!ABS probably should be a mandatory requirementI personally would like to have blind spot monitoring, although should absolutely NOT be mandatory. Is there a blind spot monitoring kit that could be rerofitted to a 1980 Cadillac?
  • IBx1 A manual transmission
  • Bd2 All these inane posts (often referencing Hyundai, Kia) the past week are by "Anal" who has been using my handle, so just ignore them...
  • 3-On-The-Tree I was disappointed that when I bought my 2002 Suzuki GSX1300R that the Europeans put a mandatory speed limiter on it from 197mph down to 186mph for the 2002 year U.S models.