Best new car features are new takes on old ideas
Coffee cups, Midwestern values, action heroes — Americans love to hold on to things. We especially like holding on to our cars. Despite record new car sales in 2015 and again in 2016, Americans had held on to their cars for a record average of 11.6 years as of 2016, according to IHS Markit.
People who haven’t bought a new car in a while may be surprised that features such as a CD player, full-size spare tire, hand brake, even a key have gone the way of the telephone booth, VCR, and fax (even as newsprint is alive and well, and the road atlas still rules!).
Evolution is all about tradeoffs, and there’s plenty to look forward to in new cars. Just be patient with the learning curve.
Adaptive cruise control
There’s plenty of concern about the advent of self-driving cars, but reality is that the first self-driving car technology dates back to the 1958 Chrysler Imperial. That cutting-edge land shark featured cruise control. In nearly 60 years we’ve come a long way, and adaptive cruise control is our favorite new car feature. It’s also the groundwork for self-driving cars.
Adaptive cruise uses sensors in the front of the car or in the housing by the rearview mirror to detect vehicles in front of it and maintain a desired speed based on car length. Once the driver sets the cruise, the adaptive element will speed up or slow down based on traffic in your lane. Following distance can range from one to four car lengths, but in actuality the length is about three times that. On highway trips the driver may never need to apply the brake or gas, or press arrows on the steering wheel.
Many technology packages with adaptive cruise also come with some iteration of lane keeping, which reads lanes and alerts drivers when the vehicle is drifting out of it, or may even move the steering wheel to maintain the lane. Lane-keeping is far more polarizing than adaptive cruise, but the twin love it or leave it technologies are the basis for self-driving cars.
Welcome lights
There’s no better symbol of that touchstone of western civilization — personal property — than keys. Once upon a time cars came with two keys, one for the doors and trunk, another for the ignition. Now we have fobs.
The next evolution of remote keyless entry is rocksized fobs, or smart keys, that never need to be removed from pocket or purse as long as you don’t go swimming and drown yourself from the weight of some of these things.
Smart keys unlock the doors as you approach, as the car senses the fob from about 10 feet away. Luxury makes ranging from Jaguar to Lincoln, and premium trims from Ford to Subaru, take it a step further and will illuminate front and rear lights as well as project the make’s logo on the ground as an illuminated welcome mat. Interior lights come on and some cars with remote start can be programmed to heat or cool the interior upon arrival.
The “approach detection” on the new Lincoln Continental is one of the best at its price point, like a robotic pet coming to life at your approach, but Tesla, like all things Tesla, takes things further. The driver side door of the Model X will open when the fob is within about 5 feet, and not only does it have remote start, it has remote summon, where you can press the fob and the car will back out of the garage or parking spot and warm itself up. BMW has something similar, and soon enough Tesla will roll out full summon capability, like KITT from “Knight Rider.”
The downside to smart keys is replacements must be bought from the dealer, and can range in price from $200 to $500.
Automatic lights
If you’ve driven a car, odds are you’ve left the headlights on and needed a jump. Chances are you’ve forgotten to turn them on at the end of a long day, and cursed the fools flashing their brights at you until you realized they were not the fool.
Automatic headlights sense light conditions and respond accordingly, illuminating daytime running lights when it’s daytime or in light weather, then going full illumination in fog or at nighttime. Not only do they help the driver see better, they also make the car better seen by traffic and pedestrians. All the driver has to do is leave the headlights switch in its default setting.
Automatic headlights have become pretty standard in the past five years, but they’ve also led to a slew of innovative illumination, including dynamic headlamps, which turn with the steering wheel so the intended direction is lit up to better see where you are going not just where you are.
LEDs (light emitting diodes) are all the rage in headlights, but a 2016 report by the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety was critical of the nighttime vision provided by both LED and halogen headlights in most new cars, due to reflectors and lenses.