The Car of the Future is Coming

Millions of people own cars for their everyday transportation, and others buy cars for sport, luxury, power or peak performance. But safety is something all car buyers have in common. And even while interior improvements are at an all time high, there are more important technological improvements being implemented every day– with a focus on safety. Here are some of the more incredible advancements you might not have heard about.

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1. Airless Tires

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The End of the Flat Tire.  Polaris Industries is the first company to announce a consumer launch date for the airless tire.  Polaris bought Resilient, a Wisconsin based company, which designed the airless tire for the department of defense, and started testing. The inside of the tire is a massive plastic honeycomb which is surrounded by a band of rubber tread with a steel core. The design allows heat to escape which is not possible with regular rubber tires. These tires are said to be military grade which can withstand being hit by shrapnel and .50 caliber bullets; the tires have also been punctured with a railroad spike, driven over 5,000 miles and for hundreds of hours. Through all of this testing, the tires proved to continue to function as normal even if 30% of the inner web was damaged. These tires are able to handle rough terrain and will contort in shape, providing protection and cushioning, when passing over an obstacle. The airless tire has actually been around since 2005 with versions also created by Michelin, Bridgestone, and Hankook. Now that the US Special Ops Forces have their airless tires, Polaris plans to introduce ones for the retail market, however they have yet to reveal how much it would cost.

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2. Piloted Parking

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Use Your Phone to Park Your Car.  German automaker, Audi, is testing a brand new program called Pilot Parking. This program completely eliminates the hassles of parking garages. Instead of the driver getting a ticket or paying cash to be able to park in a public garage and then driving up and down rows and levels to find an open spot, the driver would simply pull up to the garage, get out at the front gate, open a phone app, choose an open parking spot within the garage, and the car will park itself. Once parked, the doors would lock, engine shuts off, and the car would send a parked confirmation to the driver’s phone. When the driver is ready to leave, they simply activate the Pilot Parking app and the car drives back to the drop off location. Although this sounds great, there are a few things that are needed in order for this to work. The car would have to have self-driving capabilities and light detection and ranging (LIDAR) cameras, and the parking garage would need to have laser sensors. The self-driving car already exists, and Audi believes once the masses have these cars, garages will be willing to install laser sensors. Audi is also working on other piloted driving systems for outdoor parking areas, personal garages, and to even assist in traffic jams.

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3. Tactile-Warning Safety Seat

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Don’t Just See Danger, Feel It, Safely.  Cadillac’s 2013 XTS Flagship comes equipped with a brand new safety feature called the Safety Alert Seat which is practical and enjoyable at the same time. If a driver starts drifting out of their lane, or the car detects hazard in the front, blind spot, or rear of the car the driver’s seat will vibrate to warn the driver of the threat. Currently detection systems provide an audio or visual warning which General Motor’s research proves less effective than their vibration system. The seat vibrates on the side the hazard is detected; so if the driver is switching into a left lane and a car is in the blind spot, the vibration will occur on the left side of the seat. If the hazard is in the front or back of the car, the seat will vibrate on both sides. The Safety Alert Seat will only go off when the driver may be unaware of a pending collision and if the car determines a collision will occur, then the car will automatically brake.

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4. Infrared Car System

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Detect and See Animals at Night.  Mercedes-Benz teamed up with Auto-liv, a Swedish safety-system, five years ago and are finally introducing Assist Plus on the 2014 S-Class cars. Assist Plus is a system which contains infrared cameras, on the front grill, that can detect not only humans that are out of headlight range at night, but for the first time ever the system can detect animals. Auto-liv had to catalog thousands of animals from all over the world in order to put together the system. Even though the system to detect humans debut 13 years ago, animals come in all different shapes, sizes, and have various movements which made the system unable to detect them. Now when the cameras pick up any warm-blooded species near the roadway, the system highlights it on the dashboard and if the system detects immediate danger an alarm will sound and the car will automatically brake. If this technology becomes standard in all cars, approximately 27,000 motorists can potentially avoid injury each year and save about a million deer lives.

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5. Text Messaging Assistant

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Text and Drive Safely  With text messaging becoming the norm of communicating, everyone should be aware it is against the law to text and drive. Texting while driving not only distracts the driver but people have died or become seriously injured from it. Nissan’s Versa Note and Altima come with NissanConnect, a hands-free text messaging assistant. NissanConnect links to a smartphone which enables the car to read incoming messages out loud and through voice recognition the driver can also send a reply message. If this system becomes standard in all cars, it can potentially save the lives of 11 teenage drivers every day.

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6. Inductive Charging

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Charge Devices (and Cars) Without Wires.  With all the electronic gadgets used today, it is not uncommon to see someone searching for an outlet to charge their device but surfaces that will charge devices without being plugged into an outlet do exist; now there’s even one for cars. Qualcomm Halo Wireless Electric Vehicle Charging (WEVC) essentially uses a mat that contains a transmitting coil, and through induction magnetic fields transfer energy from the coil to a plate, built-in under the car, which can convert the energy into an electric current. Qualcomm plans to launch a trial of the charger in about 50 cars over the next two years. If the charger proves to be stable, then it will hit the consumer market and Qualcomm will license the technology to car manufacturers so the plates can be added to electric cars. The car can be fully charged in approximately 8 hours, which is similar to the wired versions, and the charging mat will be completely portable.

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