Tech firms holding up car-to-car connection
Potentially huge safety boon has been possible for years, writes David Booth.
In case you haven’t noticed, there’s a war going on in telecommunications. I’m talking about a global war on inter-competing technologies that is slowing down the implementation of groundbreaking life-saving technology.
We were promised cars that would talk to each other (so they would not crash into one another), relay our presence to stoplights (so we could maintain the optimum speed to not need to stop at intersections) and communicate with roadways (so multiple cars could “platoon” together to reduce congestion and improve fuel consumption as we bask in the slipstreaming effect).
Well, except for a few Cadillacs in the U.S. and a few Toyotas in Japan, our cars remain as uncommunicative as ever.
Volkswagen has announced its new, eighth-generation Golf will have car-to-car communications available in Europe, the first mainstream automobile in the world to do so. Considering how long we’ve been talking about this technology, it’s has to be considered a blight on the auto industry that it has taken so long. And it’s all because of infighting between automakers.
Essentially, it comes down to this: to talk to each other, cars need some sort of inter-vehicular communication system.
Some automakers — General Motors and Volkswagen, for instance — want to use a Wi-fibased system called public wireless local area network (PWLAN) in Europe and Dedicated Shortrange Communication (DSRC) in North America. Others (most notably Ford and BMW) want to go the cellular route — the 5G systems that Donald Trump’s histrionics have delayed.
Each group makes claims of technological superiority. The Wi-fi cohort claims that because the DSRC — good for about 800 metres — communicates directly between cars, there’s less latency (that’s “delay” in geekspeak) and so reaction times to dangerous situations are quicker. Proponents of cellular vehicle-to-everything communications — C-V2X in similar Silicon Valley verbiage — say the impending 5G revolution means cars could communicate with far more road users — motorcycles and bicyclists, for instance — as well as any pedestrian with a latest-generation smartphone. (On a personal note, I have been eagerly awaiting Apple’s iphone 12 precisely because it will be 5G-equipped. Even though my motorcycle might not be able to detect other road users, it would at least mean car drivers could “see” me, hopefully preventing an intersection T-bone.)
Both systems have their scholarly adherents, the DSRC proponents maintaining that inter-car Wi-fi is ready to go and its direct connection more reliable. Meanwhile, the C-V2X consortium claims that the ubiquity of cellular communications would prevent a greater number of deaths and damage.
The real reason for discounting DSRC as the future of autonomous — and semi-autonomous — automobiles, however, is that automakers have been sitting on the technology for more than two decades. Way back in 1999, the U.S. Federal Communications Commission (FCC) decided to dedicate the 5.9 GHZ spectrum to Wi-fi communications between automobiles. Yes, 21 years ago. It has taken 20 years for VW to finally make 802.11p-based Wi-fi standard equipment in a mainstream car.
It’s so bad that the FCC has decided to rescind the automobile industry’s exclusive use of the 5.9 gigahertz band. Originally, cars were given sole use of the 75 megahertz of bandwidth. As of late last year, the FCC proposed taking all but 30 MHZ of that bandwidth back.
In response, the Alliance for Automotive Innovation, representing many of the major automakers, promised in April to install five million pieces of V2X equipment over the next five years, but only, says Consumer Reports, if the FCC reverses course. But it appears to be too late: FCC chairman Ajit Pai has already proposed to reallocate the majority of the band — the bottom 45 MHZ — to general Wi-fi use.
Pretty much everyone seems to agree that car-to-car and car-to-everything will usher in the greatest era of automotive fatality reduction since the airbag.
Much of the delay in its introduction is the result of internecine warfare between competing technologies, not to mention the lethargy of auto companies to adopt these high-tech life savers.
For shame.