It's a nice, sunny Saturday and you've decided to go on a spontaneous weekend trip with the family to Freiburg, in Germany's Schwarzwald. You walk out to the car, throw an overnight bag in the trunk. Kid A jumps into the back seat and buckles his four-point, criss-cross seatbelt, and Wife straps Kid B into her toddler seat beside him, confidant that the BabySmart automatic child seat recognition system will not deploy the airbag in the event of an accident. You settle into the driver's seat and marvel again at the fact that the car has automatically unlocked the doors, started the engine and adjusted the seat, steering wheel, rearview mirror and climate control to your preferred settings? and you haven't even needed to produce a key! It was all taken care of by the KeylessGo smart card in your shirt pocket, which the car immediately recognized as you approached. Wife settles into the passenger seat and you reverse out into the driveway. A touch of the Home Link button on the steering wheel transmits a signal that switches off the lights in the garage and closes the automatic door.
You pull out into the street and your soul purrs contentedly at the thought of finally getting to try out all the hi-tech bells and whistles on this brand new Futura Executive Deluxe. You've only had it two weeks and the three and a half hour drive will give you a chance to get more intimately acquainted with it. Somewhere up front a 215-horsepower, 3.2-litre, V6 engine purrs along nicely too. Of course, you can't hear it from within the luxurious, two-tone, Nappa-leather coated, redwood wraparound-trim interior though. The sound insulation is superb. Even more impressive is the centrally located AMI-C multimedia communications interface system set into the dashboard.
Wife has called up the navigation function and selected Freiburg from the destinations list. The GPS has located the car's position and the computer has calculated the optimal route, which it displays on the 10-inch, 16:9-format, high-definition colour screen. A female electronic voice says, "Turn next left". This voice will give you route directions for the entire 311.2-kilometre trip. You get into the left lane and, while waiting for the light to change, select Hotel Reservations from the concierge services menu on the interface. "Let's book a hotel before we forget", you say, and type in 'Freiburg' on the keypad. A list of hotels in the area is displayed onscreen. Wife scrolls through them and finds a quaint, chalet-style, 4-star hotel set in the forest. She reads out its amenities and you readily agree to go for that one. Wife types in the reservation details and presses the 'send' button. About a minute later, a beep from the interface alerts you to incoming mail ? it's confirmation from the hotel that your reservation has been made.
A blaring wail suddenly emanates from the 11-speaker digital audio system. Kid A has downloaded the new single by BrainFunk via the Internet-enabled multimedia entertainment screen set into the back of the driver's seat and zapped up the volume on the console housed in the rear-seat armrest. Your skin crawls, but instead of getting irate, you quickly thumb down the noise, activate the parental lock to prevent access from the back seat and select a smooth jazz album that is loaded into the 12-disk CD changer in the glove box, all with a few flicks of the steering-wheel mounted audio controls. You glance in the rearview mirror at your son, but he's not in the least perturbed ? he's already donned the headphones and is busy choosing a movie to watch from the stack of DVDs he's brought with him.
You're two hours into the drive when the navigation system's electronic voice informs you that you're now joining a 50-km stretch of the new automated highway system on the E25. Because your car is AHS compliant, the highway infrastructure and the vehicle will communicate with each other using sophisticated sensing, control and computer technology to steer, accelerate and brake your car as it is automatically, safely and efficiently guided along in the high-occupancy traffic flow. This ensures that your car remains a safe distance from the vehicle in front and stays in the proper lane. It therefore allows more traffic to flow more safely and with much less chance of accidents occurring than a conventional road does. And because it's a very efficient traffic-management system, there's no congestion to deal with either. Now that you're on autopilot, you remove your hands from the wheel and your feet from the pedals, cross your arms and relax. You chat with Wife for a while and turn around to make funny faces at Kid B who is gurgling away merrily in her baby seat.
Then the integrated digital cellphone beeps once and automatically puts the music on pause. You say, "Hello", and Wife's mother responds. Her voice comes through the car's audio speaker system and she hears both of you thanks to the invisible microphone built into the dash. The three of you converse amiably for some time and then she wishes you a pleasant trip. Wife says, "Hang up", and the phone hangs up. Not that there's any physical hanging up to do. In fact, since the phone operates via voice recognition, you don't need to use your hands at all. You can even dial up a number from your stored phone book by just saying the name of the person you want to call ? handy (J) when you're concentrating on driving the car. At the moment, however, you're still on the AHS, so you've got time to write and send a few e-mails. Meanwhile, a fax comes through from your business partner in the US. It's the closing figures for yesterday's session on the Nasdaq. You scrutinize them briefly then put the paper in your pocket.
A while later, the interface tells you you're approaching the end of the AHS and alerts you to regain manual control of the car. It also warns you that the main approach road to Strasbourg is pretty congested and suggests an alternate route to bypass the city. You follow the directions given and turn off the highway onto a smaller road with less traffic. Now that the car's controls are back in your hands, you step on the gas a bit to appreciate the responsiveness and enjoy the excellent ride and handling of this powerful machine.
Although you have only a dim understanding of what it all means, it's reassuring to know that this car is equipped with hydraulic brake assist, cornering brake control, electronic stability program, new-generation ABS and computer activated technology suspension to ensure your car stays safely in control no matter what the road and weather conditions are like, or how aggressively you drive. And if you somehow do manage to crash, the multiple airbags (including side-impact thorax and head airbags in addition to frontal airbags for all occupants), active head restraint system (which thwarts whiplash injuries) and force-limiting, pretensioning seatbelts will limit any injury as much as possible. It's also good to know that emergency assistance will be dispatched rapidly, since the TeleAid system automatically places a call to an operator when the airbags are deployed.
It's suddenly become very overcast and heavy rain has cut visibility dramatically. The xenon high intensity discharge headlights come on and you activate the Night Vision head-up display to enhance your visibility even more. This uses infrared technology to detect thermal energy of objects beyond the headlights' range. You slow down and flick on the adaptive cruise control, which uses radar to automatically maintain a safe distance from the vehicle in front. Wife, however, is a bit nervous about the worsening conditions and, when she sees a roadside café up ahead, suggests you stop for a coffee. "Maybe the storm will blow over in a while," she says. "Besides, Kid B needs her nappy changed." So you pull into the lot and the acoustic parking system guides you safely as you reverse into a space between two vehicles.
Half an hour later, the weather has indeed improved. You all pile back into the car, refreshed from the short stop and eager to do the last 42.3 kilometres to the hotel. However, there's an ominous red light blinking on the instrument panel that you've never seen before. You also notice ?consternation!? that the engine isn't running. You press the backup ignition button, but the rev-counter stays at zero and a message flashes on the communications interface: Systems failure - Performing diagnostics now - Please wait?
You exchange a glance with Wife and shrug as you see the growing concern in her eyes. Just then a voice comes over the phone, greets you courteously by name and explains that he is an operator at the telediagnostics centre. His system has detected a burned out 20-amp fuse in the electronic fuel-injection assembly of your vehicle. He assures you that it's only a minor repair job and that a mobile servicing team has already been alerted to the situation and your location. He regrets to inform you, however, that they are unlikely to reach you within the next three hours, due to unusually high demand at the moment. Having no desire to be stuck out here for that long, you agree with Wife that it would be best to call for a taxi to bring you to the hotel now. You inform the operator of this decision and he promises that your vehicle will be repaired and delivered to your hotel by eight o'clock tomorrow morning at the latest.
The Taxi Services function on your navigation system lists a number of operators close to your location. You call one up and arrange to have a cab sent as soon as possible. Ten minutes later it arrives and as you transfer your bag and the kids, Wife throws you a look that is somewhat reproachful ? it seems to be accusing you of failing a fundamental test of manhood: the ability to protect and provide for your family at all times. You pretend you haven't noticed the look and smile benignly, as if to say, "Don't worry about anything - it's all under control." Secretly, though, you know that she's right. If you weren't so completely inept at dealing with anything technical, you might have been able to extract your family from this unexpected situation by actually opening the hood and replacing the fuse yourself. There must be spare ones tucked away somewhere. At the thought of this, though, you recall previous attempts at fixing things where you've managed to make things a lot worse than they were already. Just because you make a living out of trading in technology stocks doesn't mean you have to get your hands grubby on the inner workings of the actual stuff, does it?
You sigh inwardly. For some reason that you can't quite figure out, you feel emasculated; here you are, this successful, wealthy and influential businessman, abandoning your 3.2-million-franc luxury, 'intelligent' car, whose every feature exudes power and competence but which now sits there, as the taxi pulls away, a useless and pathetic hulk of metal and hi-tech wiring ? all because of a lousy fuse that probably costs about 4 francs. "Oh well," you think, determined not to let this incident spoil the whole weekend, "It's Murphy's law, I guess; no matter how sophisticated the technology, a machine is only ever as reliable as its cheapest, basest component." You put these thoughts from your mind and turn to Kid A, who wants to know if there's a TV in the hotel room. "Knight Rider is on at five o'clock", he says.
Annexe:
Overview of vehicle technologie mentioned in this article:
Note: some of the product names used are registered names or trademarks belonging to the vehicle manufacturers. They are used here only as examples to demonstrate current developments in vehicle technology. Similar technologies from manufacturers other than those cited may also exist and this list is not exhaustive. Please refer to manufacturers for full details.
The Futura Executive Deluxe is a fictitious vehicle for the purposes of this article. All of the underlined systems, however, currently exist, though not all together on any single model.
The BabySmart automatic child seat recognition system is available
on Mercedes-Benz models. KeylessGo is a programmable smart key available for the Mercedes S600L and CL-Class models.
HomeLink is a remote transmitter available on Audi A6 and Allroad models.
AMI-C, the Automotive Multimedia Interface Collaboration, whose members include DaimlerChrysler, Ford, General Motors, Renault, Toyota, Fiat, Honda, Mitsubishi Motors and Nissan, is working to design a standard communications interface based on 'plug-n-play' that allows any number of different devices, such as cell phones, DVD players, fax/e-mail/Internet capabilities to be connected into a vehicle's computer electronics for a seamless flow of information. Various GPS-based navigation systems are available from Peugeot, Citroën, Audi, Opel, General Motors, Mercedes and other manufacturers.
Concierge services such as hotel/restaurant reservations, tourist information and other assistance is offered by such systems as GM's OnStar.
The Automated Highway System (AHS) is still more than a decade away, but a 7.6-mile test road incorporating thousands of high-strength ceramic magnets has been built north of San Diego, California, and is being developed using adapted Buick LeSabre cars.
Integrated digital cellphones are available from Mercedes-Benz, Peugeot, Citroën, Opel and others.
Various hydraulic brake assist, cornering brake control, electronic stability program (ESP), new-generation ABS, computer activated technology suspension and other active safety systems are integrated in the BMW X5, 5 and 7 series models, as well as in Jaguar's S-Type, Mercedes' C-Class, Volvo's V70 T5, the Opel Vectra and other models.
Multiple frontal and lateral airbags are standard in many models today. The Saab active head restraint system is featured on its 9-3 and 9-5 model lineup. Similar safety features and seatbelts with force limiters and pretensioners can be found on the Opel Vectra and the Mercedes C320.
The Mercedes TeleAid and GM's OnStar systems both transmit emergency rescue calls when an airbag is deployed.
Xenon headlights are an option for the Audi Allroad and the Mercedes CL-Class. Night Vision is an enhanced visibility system developed by Cadillac.
Adaptive cruise control is featured on several Mercedes models and the Saab 9-5 Aero.
A rear-facing acoustic parking system is included in the optional Guidance Package for the Audi Allroad.
All General Motors vehicles equipped with OnStar can have telediagnostics and telemaintenance performed by the assistance centre, including remote unlocking of the driver's door. Peugeot and Citroën are developing a similar system.