TECHNOLOGY HAS TRANSFORMED THE AUTOMOTIVE INDUSTRY!
Influencing all areas of life, technology does not only pose an alternative to internal combustion engines, but has had and continues to have a great impact on the automotive industry as a whole. There are so many innovations on the road that leads to driverless cars!
Don’t make much of me starting to bewail the changes in internal combustion engines. In truth, when we look at automotive history, we can easily see that it is one of the industries that is open to technological advances. Since the day when the first massproduced Ford started to wend its way at the beginning of the previous century, technology has transformed industry in terms of production, operation, and maintenance. The driving forces which will be taking the place of internal combustion engines and those running on gasoline have finally made it into our lives. We are fast moving away from fossil fuels and towards electrical, hybrid, and other alternative energy forms.
Even though electric vehicles seem to be a new technology, the first electric cars were seen on the road in the
1890s. However, for their development and efficiency to reach an adequate level over a century had to pass. While it was pioneered by Tesla, all the big brands are making great effort towards electric cars, the driving force of the near future. For drivers and passengers, the impact of technology on the industry is not limited to production and maintenance, of course. After all, we were also introduced to autonomous driving by vehicles like KITT, the car in the '80s hit TV series "Knight Rider". Just like Iggy Pop says in the wonderful song “The Passenger,” it is possible to say “I am the passenger” as you get into the driver’s seat of a car!
Knight Rider Technology!
When the series “Knight Rider” was being broadcast, we were imagining cars like that to be on the roads in the 2000s. It took 20 years for these dreams to come true but when we look at the pace with which artificial intelligence (and the digital ecosystem) is gaining momentum, we foresee that
we will be introduced to more inconceivable innovations in a shorter period of time. The cars will not only be smart, but they will talk with one another. By obtaining information from the road, collecting data from the city, and providing feedback they will lead to the formation of a more advanced world. After autonomous driving, automobile ownership will also be different. As a part of a sharing economy, we’ll be able to rent a car from a manufacturer and get in the vehicle that will arrive wherever we are within a certain time frame. Those using luxury automobiles will also be able to keep up their luxury lifestyle by renting vehicles of the same brand while those who opt for middle class cars will be able to get car services by renting from a brand that offers models of this class. We will be seeing hundreds of driverless cars on the roads, and these will operate as the mobile data stations that traverse the arteries of smart cities. They will pave the way for the development of new technologies and the provision of new opportunities for efficiency.
If we are to return to the technologies of our day, when you want to sell an automobile in the European Union, the fact that you are obliged to provide certain autonomous safety standards puts forth the impact of technology on automobiles. When we say technological braking systems, don’t just think of systems such as ABS and EBD. Now, the first to come to your mind should be AEB. The new standard in many vehicles today, AEB (Autonomous Emergency Braking) assesses the road and prevents potential crashes by employing camera, radar, and LiDAR technologies. Systems such as AEB first warn the driver in order to prevent a potential accident, and if they don’t get any reaction from the
driver, they take over control within seconds and hit the brakes.
Standard Equipment: Safety
Similarly, the safety systems which scan the road, return you to the lane when you stray away from it; warn you if there is a vehicle in the blind spot by collecting data from the side cameras; and if you are backing towards an object, they show the image captured by the cameras at the back and give out a warning signal based on data from the sensors. Depending on the driver’s reaction, the car can discern whether you are sleepy or not, and asks you if you’d like to take a coffee break. All of the above is now possible thanks to the blessings of the technological advances made in the name of getting drivers to concentrate on the road more fully, and hence providing a more comfortable and safe means of travel.
The systems developed by the technology giant Google for its own car provide the chance to program the vehicle to interpret drivers’ common driving behaviors on the road in order to obtain better foresight, to render the autonomous drive safer and more comfortable, and to navigate more smartly. The system, which is rigged with laser sensors, can decipher whether the vehicles cruising around it are automobiles, bicycles, or motorcycles depending on their speed and movement patterns. It is certain that the automobile Apple is keeping under wraps will also feature striking new technologies.
The name of one other technology that eases the life of drivers is adaptive cruise control. Among the adaptive systems offered by various brands are, for instance, Audi’s system, which uses 30 different control units to analyze the surroundings of the vehicle, has a stop-and-go function,
and can reach a speed of up to 250 km/h while keeping a safe driving distance from the car in front of it. It is not a fully autonomous system but in flowing or slow-moving traffic, it provides great ease for drivers. The system works based on the measurements of the two radar sensors at the front of the vehicle.
The increase in this type of advanced cruise control and also self-parking systems bring us close to the new aim of the automotive industry: fully autonomous driving systems.
More Than a Driving Computer
Considering that the computerized tools, which we used to see solely as driving computers on the dashboard, are more pivotal in automobiles today, they offer a greater area of utilization for user interaction. Today, all manufactured automobiles have an onboard computer that controls a wide array of functions. These systems, which increase user interaction, enable control of many of the vehicle’s features by providing data on external factors, and even on exhaust emissions. Moreover, especially with smartphones entering into our lives, new systems that can talk with the vehicles and reflect the multimedia options to the vehicle's music system are making it into our cockpits in a more advanced and practical manner. Platforms such as Apple CarPlay and Google
Android Auto provide phone functionality for drivers without the need to take their phones into their hands, by
mirroring it on a larger display and limiting the time spent handling the phone. However, producers who think that even this is not enough and that this type of interaction can impact driving safety developed contactless systems that can be utilized by hand movements. And hence, you can change the radio station by moving your hand while you listen to music as if to say "pass" in order to go to the next song, increase the volume, or turn it down, and answer or reject calls by just waving your hand to the left or right.
In the near future, in-car entertainment systems will be full of movies, music, and games that are on computers and tablets much like those on board flights (or maybe with even bigger displays). According to surveys, there are two periods that are considered lost in terms of marketing: when people sleep and when they are in automobiles! And the way to render these moments more efficient and profitable is to make the vehicles' autonomous and the in-car entertainment systems richer, more advanced, and entertaining. Even though automotive brands appear before us as vehicle manufacturers with more advanced in-car entertainment systems, before long they will also become “media” companies. For instance, when you get into a Nissan, you will be able to watch the Nissan channel and similarly the videos, news, and games of every brand’s media channels as you move towards your destination. This way, you will not just be catching a ride but a joy ride in the true sense of the word!