These tech start-ups want to change the way you drive
A veteran computer scientist hates sitting in his car at stoplights, so he creates software that makes the experience less annoying. A former engineering professor wants to double the range of today’s electric vehicles. And an aeronautics expert believes flying cars shouldn’t be science fiction.
Technology is changing the car industry, with major companies laying the groundwork for driverless cars.
Meanwhile, a number of engineers and entrepreneurs have started their own companies to tackle other automotive challenges. Here are six start-ups that want to change the way you drive:
Connected Signals: Entrepreneur and computer scientist Matt Ginsberg hates red lights. So he started Connected Signals, based in Eugene, Ore., to collect real-time data from cities that synchronize their traffic signals. The company’s smartphone app tells motorists if an upcoming signal is about to change color. It shows drivers how long they’ll have to wait if a light is red — and chimes a warning just before it turns green.
BMW has added the app to its driver display. Ginsberg also sees an opportunity in selling data for automotive systems that shut off a car’s engine to save gas during longer red lights. Ginsberg has agreements with about 100 towns and hopes to cover half the U.S. by 2017.
ParkMe: Los Angeles-based ParkMe is one of several start-ups with smartphone apps that help drivers find, reserve and pay online for parking spots. ParkMe boasts parking information from 1,800 cities around the world, much of it collected via live feeds from ticket dispensers at commercial and municipal lots.
ParkMe also gets street parking data from meters that accept credit cards and from cities that use pavement sensors for parking enforcement.
MetroMile: That little diagnostic port under your car’s dashboard isn’t just for mechanics. It can provide useful data for drivers and insurance companies too.
San Francisco start-up MetroMile sells car insurance on a pay-per-mile basis, using a small device to verify the miles driven. Other insurers are trying similar devices to track drivers’ behavior, but MetroMile says it won’t penalize a customer for speeding or slamming the brakes.
Cruise: You don’t need to wait years to enjoy autonomous driving. At least that’s the premise behind Cruise Automation’s “highway autopilot” kit.
Cruise engineers have retrofitted some Audi models with prototype kits consisting of rooftop sensors, a computer in the trunk and controls that fit behind the steering wheel. Founder Kyle Vogt says the system will keep a car within its lane, while steering around curves and maintaining safe distance from other vehicles.
Vogt, a software engineer who helped launch streaming video service Twitch.tv, told the Associated Press in December that he hoped to deliver the first Cruise kits to customers this year. Cruise received a permit in June to conduct tests on California highways, but a spokesman recently declined to comment on its timetable.
Sakti3: Most electric vehicles on the market only go 100 miles on a charge. A better battery is the industry’s “holy grail,” said investor Quin Garcia of Auto Tech Ventures, which funds automotive start-ups.
Sakti3, based in Ann Arbor, Mich., is among several start-ups trying new approaches to lithium-ion batteries. Founder Ann Marie Sastry, a former engineering professor at the University of Michigan, was invited to a White House event this month to explain her ideas for making powerful batteries more cheaply.
Appliance maker Dyson Inc. has invested in Sakti3. General Motors is also an investor.
Terrafugia: The privately backed start-up in Woburn, Mass., admits on its website that f lying cars have become a pop-culture symbol for dreams that don’t come true. CEO Carl Dietrich wants to change that.
Two years ago, Dietrich and his co-founders — all MIT graduates — wowed observers at a Wisconsin air show by flying a gasoline-powered light plane the size of an SUV, which can fold its wings and meet legal requirements for highway driving. The company hopes to deliver a version to customers in 2017, at an anticipated price of $279,000.
“Our first product is very much an airplane that can be driven,” Dietrich said, “but it’s putting our company in position to make a car that can fly.”