Never have fault lines in the automotive industry seemed so clearly defined. On the one hand, at its official Los Angeles Auto Show unveiling, Cadillac took the wrappers of its latest hot-rod, the ATS-V, a pugnacious little pit bull of a sports coupe so overtly steroidal one can’t help but wonder if Victor Conte (BALCO’s supplier to the stars of anabolics) didn’t have a hand in the design. It will undoubtedly be very fast and furious and, judging by the emphasis Cadillac is placing on its No-Lift Shifting manual transmission, a hands-on driver’s car.
On the other, as part of this year’s Connected Car Expo, futurist Peter Schwartz talked of the growing number of consumers “who simply don’t care very much about cars” and how the hands-free automobile will shortly be the automotive industry’s most disruptive technology. The fact that “in the future, we’re going to be seeing people driving down the freeway without their hands on the wheel” is a given, says Schwartz, the bigger question being who will produce all this autonomy and who will just be along for the ride. Indeed, says Schwartz, all manner of scenarios present themselves, not the least of which is that traditional automotive OEMs might be sidelined in favour of “digital invaders,” the mechanical bits of the car rendered simply the vessel — like Microsoft’s all-encompassing software did to IBM’s PC business — for all this new-found connectivity.
A German-built 2009 Volkswagen Passat CC equipped with Chevrolet’s ‘Be Connected’ technology on display the Connected Car Expo on the opening press and trade day at the LA Auto Show in Los Angeles, California on November 18, 2014.
Frederic J. Brown, AFP/Getty Images
What was most interesting is that these seemingly disparate viewpoints were all to be had under the same roof, the Los Angeles Auto Show the first of the traditional automotive events in North America to embrace a completely separate exposition of connected car technologies seemingly at odds with its metal-centric focus.
Motor Mouth: Hands-free technology isn’t the safest solution
So in the same Los Angeles Convention Centre where Ford parlayed the new Mustang into the latest in a long line of phantasmagorical Shelby GT350s — this 2015 version with a Ferrari-like flat-plane crank and a wowza 8,200 rpm redline — we have Maggie Hendrie, chair of interaction design at California’s Art Center College of Design, saying that the car will soon be nothing more than a mobile iPhone. Just as we have Audi proclaiming the increased performance (as if any was needed) of its 570-horsepower R8 Competition, Mary Ann de Lares Norris, COO of Oblong Industries, is showing how connectivity will allow Wikipedia-like information to be projected on the rear windows of our cars so that our kidlets might actually learn about the countryside they see speeding by. And while Jaguar was touting the added performance of its newly all-wheel-driven version of it super-sporty F-Type, Bryan Biniak, a Global VP and general manager for Nokia, sees the future connected car not only alerting your house that you’re on your way home — fire up the Nest thermostat; it’s frosty! — but also judging the driver’s mood and alerting anyone at home to run/hide/call-the-cops if the commute home has been particularly congested.
Mary Ann de Lares Norris, COO, Oblong Industries, speaks at a discussion on Interacting with Tomorrow’s Car during the Connected Car Expo at the LA Auto Show on Tuesday, Nov. 18, 2014, in Los Angeles.
Chris Carlson, AP Photo
Considering that, according to J.D. Power, the average North American now spends 20 hours and 18 minutes in their car each and very week, much of that stuck in traffic, the need to remain connected may indeed trump the need for speed. The schism between the techies and traditional automakers was most apparent, however, in KPMG’s assertion that sees car sales dropping dramatically by 2040 as a result of self-driving cars reducing the number of American two-car households from 57% to as low as 30%. Gary Silberg, the company’s national industry leader, automotive, says that the ease with which autonomous automobiles can be delivered to your doorstep with just a call from your smartphone will make “mobility-on-demand companies like Uber and Zipcar … compelling alternatives to ownership, especially in urban areas.”
Right now, the two sides profess peaceful co-existence, a detente in which (most of) the autonomous driving contingent insists there will always have to be a driver behind the wheel while the traditional car guys point to the advancements in safety the electronic wizards have brought to the automobile industry. But, behind the scenes, both sides deride the other, traditionalists dismissing the futurists as eggheads looking to forever quash the joys of driving and the computer wonks wondering why we’re fussing about distracted driving (“What are the dangers of distraction, really?” was an actual question at one of the CCE conferences) when the car should be doing that for you.
One can’t help but think that some sort of denouement is coming, one pitting Detroit versus Silicon Valley. As someone who loves cars, I am obviously praying the former triumphs. But, if I had to put money on the table, I’d be betting on the latter.
An interior view from the driver’s seat of a 2015 Audi TTS equipped with Nvidia Technology on dispay at the Connected Car Expo on the opening press and trade day at the L.A. Auto Show in Los Angeles, California on Nov. 18, 2014.
Frederic J. Brown, AFP/Getty Images
What happens when a self-driving car malfunctions? Volvo has an answer
Finally, an answer — or, at least one car company’s answer — to the question of the reliability of the autonomous automobile. After all, who among us hasn’t had an iPhone/laptop/mainframe-server crash at the most inopportune moment. Considering the havoc such a “port not recognized” error might wreak in a self-driving two-ton automobile, the reliability of the onboard computing systems required for self-driving is of paramount importance. Volvo’s answer is to build two such systems into its future self-driving cars. Essentially, all the pertinent systems related to the automated driving of the car — the computing hardware, braking and steering systems, etc. — are duplicated. In the interests of keeping costs of these Drive Me systems competitive, the redundant systems will be minimalistic, only able to, if they are called upon because of a complete failure of the main operating system, bring the car to a safe stop on the side of the road. Nonetheless, says Dr. Erik Coelingh, senior technical leader of Volvo’s Active Safety & Chassis department, this means that, unlike many proposed autonomous driving systems, the driver doesn’t always have to be at the ready in case of an electronic glitch.
