WHEELS

The first two weeks of January seem to have upped the excitement levels about clean and driverless cars quite a few notches. At two big trade shows in America, the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in Las Vegas, followed by the North American International Auto Show in Detroit, vehicle manufacturers and technology companies have put vehicles that they have been working on for a few years, on display for the first time for the general public to touch, feel and see. And most of them have put a date, around 2021, by when they intend to start selling them to the public. So, for all the scepticism, it looks like it’s all coming together for smart vehicles.

Most of it is a fallout of the shove a two-year-old US-based start-up called nuTonomy gave the industry last August when it started testing cars on public roads in Singapore. Uber followed within days, and other companies started testing thereafter, with cities from Los Angeles to Singapore having allowed test runs.

This month also saw the pilot of the first self-driving public transport bus in Las Vegas that can seat a dozen people. It is being run by French company Navya. In October 2016, Otto, now owned by cab aggregator Uber, had kitted out a Volvo truck with self-driving wiring and software and made its first delivery of 50,000 Budweisers.

Companies with smart car plays include car makers like Ford, BMW, GM, aggregators like Uber, Lyft and Grab, and technology companies like Waymo (formerly Google’s self-driving car project) and nuTonomy, and numerous start-ups.

The Holy Grail that the companies making cars smarter and cleaner are in search of: driving down road fatalities and vehicle emissions to zero. Amen!

Here are five early indicators of the way things are likely to head.

BMW HoloActive Touch system

This is straight out of The Matrix. German luxury carmaker BMW’s current 5- and 7-Series sedans let the driver interact with the car using voice or hand gestures over and above knobs and buttons. Now, it has gone one step further and created what it calls a HoloActive Touch system.

BMW says: “This innovative interface between the driver and vehicle acts like a virtual touchscreen; its free-floating display is operated using finger gestures and confirms the commands with what the driver perceives as tactile feedback.” It appears next to the steering wheel and a camera on the dash tracks fingertip movement to take the commands. 
“For the first time, the functions can be controlled without any physical contact with materials, but the technology still enables the visible and tangible driver-vehicle interaction familiar from conventional touchscreens,” says the manufacturer. 

What it effectively does is take the limitation out of locating control panels in a vehicle. It does not need to be physically supported and can be turned on and off as the driver wants. Cool.

Volkswagen I.D. Buzz

As cars go autonomous, the interior won’t need to be what it is today, what with there being no need even for a front-facing driver’s seat. So cars can become loungy social spaces where passengers sit facing each other. And for electric vehicles that mostly have flat floors, the flexibility of space usage will only be greater.

These are the ideas underpinning the I.D. Buzz from Volkswagen that’s based on the company’s Modular Electric Drive Kit, or MEB, platform. Its design is a cheeky take on the company’s Microbus and can carry eight people with seats on rails that can face front or back.

The I.D. Buzz is also ready for an autonomous driving mode and with a gentle press on the VW logo the steering wheel is retracted into the dashboard. The car is powered by two electric motors.

Mercedes-Benz Vision Van

To sci-fi aficionados, the term ‘Mothership’ would evoke images of the Star Destroyers from Star Wars, the huge spaceships that traverse galaxies. But Mercedes-Benz has a different idea. In its case this is, of all things, a delivery van! And it’s no less advanced technologically than in sci-fi.

Shown at the CES, this is the smart van of the autonomous world of robots and drones and ready for The Internet of Things.

In Mothership guise, it would be the ride for eight  robots at a time. On a planned route it would keep dropping them off to go out and make deliveries and return to the Mothership route after the job is done to be picked up and driven back to the base. The van could drive itself as well.

Says Volker Mornhinweg, head of Mercedes-Benz Vans: “In an era of booming online commerce, the interplay of transport and digitisation plays a vital role.”

The Vision Van has an automated load compartment, two integrated drones for air deliveries, runs on electricity and has a 270km range.

Hyundai Ioniq and Ioniq Scooter concept

Hyundai Motor has a two-in-one concept, so to speak, for door-to-door mobility. So, its Project Ioniq Electric sedans will have their first- and last-mile solutions — the Ioniq Scooter.

The lightweight, electrically powered scooter would be stored in the front door of the Ioniq Electric car. It takes care of situations when the car has to be parked a significant distance from the passenger’s destination. The foldable scooter gets charged when it sits inside the Ioniq Electric’s door and can be unfolded with one hand. Acceleration is by scrolling up a thumb switch on the handlebar and braking by scrolling down or pressing a pad near the rear wheel. Look forward to more fairly basic, but effective, last-mile solutions.

 

Waymo-FCA collaboration
 

Strictly speaking, this story is about a month old. But it merits mention as it, more than any other, indicates how the smart car — one that runs on electricity, drives itself and is connected — is likely to evolve. 

Fiat Chrysler Automobiles (FCA) was one company that, according to its CEO Sergio Marchionne, wasn’t terribly keen on making electric cars as they made no money from it.

Enter Waymo, or the erstwhile Google Project, to develop a self-driving car. It had pioneered the development of the autonomous car as far back as in 2009. While there was speculation whether it would get into car manufacturing, with the creation of Waymo, it has clearly said it will not enter that space and has chosen to remain a self-driving technology creator and provider.

The FCA tie-up, thus, is a win-win for both. And it most clearly defines the trend of tie-ups between automotive OEMs and technology companies to create smart mobility solutions.

The Chrysler Pacifica minivan kitted out with Waymo’s equipment is ready to go real world testing.