TECH: JAG WILL REMEMBER YOUR ANNIVERSARY
Smart Assistant’s goal is to make cars more intelligent
In two years, your Jaguar will be able to recognize you, predict how warm you’d like your seat on a rainy fall day and prompt you to swing by the florist on an anniversary.
Like the push to develop driverless technology, Jaguar Land Rover’s socalled Smart Assistant project has the goal of making vehicles more intelligent to pull in a growing group of urban residents who are more fixated on smartphones than cars. That’s contributed to declining ownership rates in Europe’s biggest cities, where public transport and car- sharing are viable alternatives to owning a vehicle.
“Priorities have changed” from the time when buying a car was a yearnedfor rite of passage, said Paola Franco, 44, who views her 45- kilometre London commute as more or less wasted time. “It’s far more important to be connected.”
Since 2005, the number of vehicles per 1,000 people in Paris has fallen nine per cent, alongside an eight per cent drop in London, according to data from research company Euromonitor International Plc. In Munich, home of BMW, the number plunged 16 per cent.
Jaguar and Land Rover will start rolling out the Smart Assistant gradually over the next 24 months, said Anthony Harper, head of research at the Whitley, England- based manufacturer. Not all functions will be available immediately.
“In terms of what the customer will experience, it’s more of a feeling of the car becoming a much- smarter and a much- more- alive thing to interact with,” Harper said in a phone interview.
The system will use cameras to recognize the driver’s face, along with technology that picks up signals from smartphones to adapt climate and even driving settings for that person. It’s designed to help keep focus on the road and will compete with technology from Mercedes- Benz and Ford.
“Connectivity is the same gamechanger in terms of benefits for driving safety as were the seat belt and the head rest,” Stefan Bratzel, director of the Center of Automotive Management at the University of Applied Sciences in Bergisch Gladbach, Germany, said in a phone interview.
Increasing use of cameras as well as radar, infrared and ultrasonic sensors is already making cars smarter, helping stop vehicles from veering from lanes and signalling when something is in the driver’s blind spot. Mercedes introduced a system in its S- Class luxury sedan last year that enables the vehicle to drive itself in stop- and- go traffic. This month Audi announced a similar project, saying it will soon offer cars that can steer, brake and accelerate at low speeds on their own.
“There’s now an understanding that more technology not only makes the car more autonomous, but also safer,” said Christian Rauch, managing director at Frankfurt- based consulting company Zukunftsinstitut GmbH. Intelligent systems “can take over many tasks that are a nuisance.”
Ford’s Sync system can access a driver’s mobile phone contacts, read out text messages and change the temperature by voice command. Dearborn, Mich.- based Ford will add accident alerts and other intuitive systems over the next five years.
“The car of the future will be much more than a mode of transport,” Stuttgart, Germany- based Mercedes- Benz, a unit of Daimler AG, said in an emailed statement. It’ll become “an intelligent, automobile companion that recognizes the driver’s and passengers’ wishes, moods and preferences.”
Mercedes- Benz will offer more of what it calls “augmented reality,” which already includes a night- vision system in the S- Class that marks pedestrians and animals in red. Virtual windscreen displays could eventually point to the building where the driver’s next meeting takes place or add leaves to trees during a dreary November drive, according to Peter Ebel, responsible for telematic systems at Daimler.
Audi is working on smart- car technology too, spokesman Tim Fronzek said in an email.
Other carmakers are teaming up directly with smartphone makers. Apple’s CarPlay will display a version of iPhone applications that can be operated by voice or touch; Honda, Mercedes- Benz and Ferrari have said they plan to put it in their cars. Google’s Android Auto, a partnership with major automakers including General Motors and Nissan, will also play through a dashboard screen.