The latest edition of Car of the Future is here! The Car of the Future blog post is a bimonthly look at all the news you might have missed on connected and driverless cars, electric and hybrid cars and everything in between.
If you read any great articles yourself about the Car of the Future, please send them to me at nma@motorists.org and perhaps I will link them in the next edition. I also post a Car of the Future story every day at 8:00 PM on Facebook.
As the Obama Administration tries to wrap up transportation business, speculation on what President-elect Trump plans to do continues. Sliding into the new year also brings a great deal of corporate news.
First of all, Business Insider has been doing an insightful series on the autonomous world.
- This is the tangled future of tech and transportation
- These 20 companies are racing to build self-driving cars in the next 5 years
- Former Tesla and BMW Exec says self-driving cars will start to kill car ownership in just 5 years
- Your Car will become a second Office in 5 years or less, GM CEO predicts
- Google is spinning out its self-driving car business into a new company called Waymo
- Uber is bringing its self-driving cars to San Francisco
Automoblog.com reports that Ford has filed a record number of patents in 2016. Not all about patents are about the Car of the Future but some are thought provoking and sometimes impractical.
In early December, Apple confirmed it’s working on self-driving cars in a letter to the NHTSA.
Connected Cars & Auto Technology
The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) finally published its notice of proposed rulemaking for what is expected to become the Federal Motor Vehicle Safety Standard (FMWSS) 150. Without any significant changes, the standards will require automakers to install dedicated short-range communications radios (DSRC) into new vehicles with the earliest start date in 2020.
JDPower has an update on the rollout of automatic emergency braking technology that has been slated to be standard equipment on all new light vehicles sold in the U.S. by 2022.
Audi is showing off its new Vehicle to Infrastructure framework or V2I in Las Vegas. How it works: When an equipped car enters an area that supports V2I, the car’s computer logs on, giving a GPS location and heading. The V2I server can then let the motorist know via a dashboard reading if the car can make it through the intersection before the red light appears. The countdown also lets the driver know how long the wait time is at a red light.
Driver-assistance components market could reach $89.3 billion by 2025, according to a recent market research report.
Driverless Cars
Just this week, the ridesharing company that is trying to take over the world, Uber surprised both the City of San Francisco and the State of California when they put driverless cars on the streets of the hilly city. One of Uber’s driverless cars ran a red light the first day and all kinds of problems started for the company. (and rightly so!)
Discussion continues on how the various state driverless car policies will interact with the federal regulations. This will probably be one of the biggest problems to untangle since several states are leading the way on their own regulations.
The states of Michigan, Ohio and Pennsylvania either announced or released new driverless car regulations or smart infrastructure plans this month.
California has given Nvidia rights to test driverless cars.
Nevada found out what happens when driverless car regulations have no enforcement teeth.
The majority of Oregon and Washington state motorists say in a new survey they won’t hand over the reins to driverless cars just yet.
Members of Chicago’s city council are not too sure about driverless cars and are thinking of banning them.
The Jacksonville, FL Transportation Authority staff has recommended replacing the Skyway rail system with driverless vehicles that travel the current route with perhaps adding an additional corridor.
Drones
Techaeris.com reported on a new police driverless superbike that is part-robotic motorcycle cop/speed camera/automatic license plate reader. This could be a motorist’s worse nightmare.
Techcrunch.com has an article on What the drone industry wants from Trump.
Emissions
Global Automakers say recent EPA decision on emissions hasty.
Mexico City, Paris, Madrid, and Athens plan to outlaw diesel engines by 2025.
Autoblog.com posts an insightful look at the slow death of the manual transmission.
Electric Cars or EVs
BMW sees years of tears on EV battery costs.
GM could lose $9,000 on every Chevy Bolt sold.
German government at odds over electric cars.
In other German industry news, Germany will spend $265 million on hydrogen car support.
Flying Cars
A Robotic Ambulance takes first flight.
Until next time, be safe driving!
Have a most wonderful Holiday time and slide into 2017!
