#Technology

Once upon a time, a kid who’d been handed the keys to the family car only stopped accelerating when a stop sign or red light approached, the vehicle ran out of gas, a speed trap appeared in the distance, or they hit the governor.

Today, technology allows parents to pry into their kids’ lives like never before. Moms and dads can harass their offspring remotely with phone calls and text messages, keep tabs on their behavior via social media posts, and even follow their minute-by-minute travels via phone tracker apps. Childhood is dead and parents are the new KGB. With its MyKey system, Ford seized on the modern parent’s growing paranoia and offered these human helicopters the opportunity to lock their crossover into “sedate” mode before tossing junior the keys. Well, fob.

But how many people actually use the feature? As it turns out, plenty. But to use it, they first need to know it exists.

J.D. Power and Associates is supremely interested in multimedia systems these days. In fact, in now incorporates audio, communication, entertainment, and navigation (ACEN) into its initial quality study. If an automaker wants one of J.D. Power’s tombstone-shaped awards, it now has to ensure its multimedia equipment isn’t vexing to consumers. Unfortunately, ACEN has proven the most problematic category for new vehicle owners since its addition to the annual survey three years ago.

The research and marketing firm recently decided to break out its ACEN scores to see which vehicles had the best infotainment systems. However, in this instance, what constitutes superior hardware is simply a lack of customer complaints. For J.D. Power, multimedia system quality is determined by the number of problems experienced per 100 vehicles over the first 90 days of ownership.

Since potential problems include everything from technical failures and overall features to how well the system was explained by the dealer and plain general satisfaction, decoding what makes a particular system truly bad is difficult. But a lower frequency of complains always means a better product. Which models shined the brightest?

BMW has showcased the new flagship SUV for the electric i brand. Called the Vision iNext, the vehicle’s aim is to make customers appreciate what’s on the inside — which is important when you’re moving into mobility and out of driving. BMW claims that the model represents the union of vehicular autonomy, connectivity, electrification, and services. It also represents the end of the car as we currently know it.

Don’t confuse the iNext as the death knell of motoring, though. This remains a concept car, not something that you’ll see appearing in your neighbor’s garage in the coming months. Despite promising a production model in 2021, this is still a conceptual exercise — BMW’s attempt at building a crystal ball that allows it to peer into the future. While we’re not going to argue the validity of clairvoyance or scrying, we will suggest that the utility vehicle is probably a more useful forecasting tool than a glass orb and a gut feeling.

Volkswagen Group is interested in teaming up with other automakers to establish a new industry standard for self-driving technology. While the move would likely help streamline development, VW’s primary concern seems to be legal protection in the event an autonomous vehicle makes a mistake.

The idea of an automaker preparing itself to better cope with the legal ramifications of accidentally killing one of its customers isn’t particularly encouraging, but it’s at least understandable.

I’ll admit it — my brow furrowed after first glimpsing the digital side mirrors adorning the Japanese-market 2019 Lexus ES. Strange, foreign, and unnecessary, the automaker’s new “Digital Outer Mirrors” seem like an answer to a question no one asked, but obviously someone did.

My next thought was how this would meld well with automakers’ infuriating tendency to outfit their concept vehicles with narrow, useless blades jutting from the leading edge of the side glass. Thinking it over, I realized Toyota’s little mirror-scrapping experiment has too many upsides to ignore.

Few things look more out of place inside a classic automobile than a period-incorrect head unit. It draws the eye like a pimple on a nose.

Fortunately, Jaguar Land Rover is now offering a new range of infotainment systems that pair modern functionality with “discreet and harmonious styling.” It’s the coolest idea since Porsche’s Classic Radio Navigation System in 2015. Alright, so it’s the exact same idea — but that hasn’t made us any less stoked about it.

Like the Porsche unit, JLR’s handiwork also resulted in something you could inconspicuously slot into your dashboard without it sticking out like a sore thumb. The “Classic Infotainment Systems” come in five distinct flavors, designed to pair well with the interior of any Jaguar or Land Rover sold over the last few decades.

Accident reports sometimes reveal more than just who was at fault. A rear-end collision in Sunnyvale, California, last week was truly a product of our modern age — an electric car slamming into the back of what would have been a human-operated crossover, were it not owned by Apple.

While the iPhone maker abandoned its Project Titan self-driving car project in 2016, it didn’t leave the autonomous vehicle field altogether. The August 24th collision shows it.

Concept vehicles have been a bit of a snoozefest for enthusiasts lately. Despite the fact that automakers are still plenty capable of bringing out gorgeous designs, the autonomous angle has become so pervasive that it’s overridden the idea of having fun.

Then, during this week’s Monterey Car Week festivities, Audi dropped the PB 18 e-tron concept at Laguna Seca and fun slapped us across the face. This is the kind of car you have on your bedroom wall as a child and work your entire life to put into a garage as an adult.

With three electric motors (one driving the front axle and two out back) providing a combined output of 671 horsepower and 612 lb-ft of torque, the PB 18 should already be a menace. However, it can also temporarily bump itself up to 764 hp using stored energy via a kinetic energy recovery system. As a result, Audi claims the car is capable of a 0-to-62 mph rush in just over 2 seconds.

Combine that with an ultra-modern design that’s within the boundaries of what’s currently possible and several scoops of driver-focused tech, and you have one of best concept vehicles we’ve seen in years. The PB 18 expertly rides the line between fanciful and plausible.

If only all automakers had what Volvo’s offering. Starting this month, buyers wishing for more of a sports car experience from their all-wheel drive, non-hybrid Volvo can hack some more attitude into it. On Wednesday, the Swedish automaker announced the availability of new software developed by its Polestar performance division that should do the trick.

Job One for this software? Send more torque to the rear wheels.

No longer content with just crashing vehicles into walls or poles, the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety has turned its attention to the ever-expanding buffet of new technologies found in today’s automobiles. Driver assistance features ease the driver’s workload and make for comfortable highway cruising, but all systems aren’t made equal.

For its test of “Level 2” autonomous features — meaning, specifically, adaptive cruise control (ACC) and active lane-holding — IIHS selected five premium four-doors. The test group consisted of a 2017 BMW 5 Series with Driving Assistant Plus, a 2017 Mercedes-Benz E-Class with Drive Pilot, a 2018 Tesla Model 3 and 2016 Model S equipped with Autopilot, and a 2018 Volvo S90 with Pilot Assist. Given that each model garnered a “superior” IIHS score for automatic emergency braking, they seemed like choice candidates for a comparison test.

The results, as you’d probably expect, were a mixed bag. We’re not at the technological finish line yet; not by a long shot.

That’s one of the unspoken questions contained in Automotive News‘ report on automotive supplier Continental’s new biometric authentication technology. Passwords are the scourge of the modern age, it’s true, and having a secure way of locking and unlocking a sensitive…anything…is preferable to trying to remember that damn combination of letters and numbers.

Computer files. Your phone. The entrance to sterile, high-security office buildings. These are all good candidates for facial recognition technology, fingerprint and retina scans, or voice recognition. But your car? It’s true that using this technology — in addition to conventional keys and fobs — would add an extra layer of defence, improving your vehicle’s chances of remaining unmolested. But at what cost?

Complain about Tesla Motors’ hype machine all you like; it’s still an innovative company. Unfortunately, it has painted itself into a bit of a corner as a result. Still lacking the production might of its much larger competitors, it continues to brand itself as an upstart as it works on improving volume. That means its CEO, Elon Musk, has to continue coming up with new ideas and gimmicks to keep the public impressed.

This week, he came up with a special vehicle mode that would improve the vehicle’s usability while parked. But we can’t exactly tell if it’s a good idea or a bunch of meaningless fluff. Dubbed by Musk as “ party & camper mode,” the setting would allow drivers to maintain in-car airflow, regulate the temperature, play music, charge devices, and have access to lighting for up to 48 hours.

There’s no timeline for the feature, but it would likely be done through via over-the-air updates, meaning it could be applied to every Tesla vehicle currently on the road.

Uber is shutting down its self-driving trucks unit due to a lack of progress and the controversy surrounding its multi-million dollar acquisition of Otto in 2016. The firm was purchased with the intent of developing self-driving cargo haulers, potentially saving the trucking company a fortune by outsourcing driving jobs to robots. But it was slow to reach that goal and ran head-on with a serious distraction almost immediately.

Initially, things looked promising. Otto was famous for engineering a truck that hauled a trailer full of beer across 120 miles of Colorado highway without human intervention. But it found a different sort of fame after its founder, Anthony Levandowski, took over as head of Uber’s self-driving car research and Waymo faulted him with handing over trade secrets.

As a former engineer for Google’s autonomous vehicle project (which would later evolve into Waymo), Levandowski was privy to sensitive information he was later accused of selling as part of the Otto buyout.

For a product or service to dominate a body of customers, another must fade to the background. Think of direct and alternating current, or perhaps digital cameras and 35mm film.

It gets a little fuzzier when the topic of personal transportation arises. Some modes of transport are so much more more useful than what they replaced (cars and horses, jetliners and ocean liners) that the preceding mode is relegated to a niche category. In others comparisons, the usefulness of a certain mode remains strong only in certain areas. Think trains.

But in a car-based world, consumers now have more options than ever in how they get around when their personal vehicle is left sitting at home. A recent survey shows just how pleasant regular car renters find app-based ride-hailing services, and traditional rental companies would be foolish to not take note.

Ford Motor Company announced Tuesday that it has formed formed a subsidiary — Ford Autonomous Vehicles LLC — devoted entirely to autonomous vehicle development. That’s probably the catchiest name we’ve heard since Bank of America Corp or Waste Management Inc. However, you don’t need a clever moniker when you’re dumping $4 billion into a project, which Ford intends to do through 2023.

With all the current drama and distrust surrounding self-driving cars, we thought there was a chance automakers would cool off on pushing for it so aggressively. But while some OEMs curbed their futuristic rhetoric ever so slightly, practically everyone else kept the pedal to the metal — an analogy that will lose all meaning once computers drive us everywhere.

Let’s see what The Future™ looks like in and around Dearborn.