There's a technology revolution in the auto business, and it
involves more than streaming radio apps and voice-activated Facebook updates.
Consumers who haven't shopped for a new car for five or more
years—and that's a lot of people, since the average U.S. vehicle has been on
the road for just over a decade—may encounter some exotic new advances.
To attract safety-conscious drivers, some car makers are
revisiting the question, "Is there anywhere else we can stash an air
bag?" Night-vision systems not unlike what the military uses to spot
enemies in the dark are appearing at the upper reaches of the luxury market.
And to meet tougher fuel-economy standards, car makers are installing
transmissions with up to nine speeds.
Only a few customers might order such novel features. But
what starts out as a costly, brand-burnishing option in a luxury sedan often
migrates into wider use as technology prices invariably drop. Here's a sample
of new technology hitting showrooms this year.
Click an Inflatable Seat Belt
Auto makers and safety-technology suppliers such as Sweden's
Autoliv ALV -1.20% have developed shoulder straps with air bags built in. In
the U.S., Ford Motor F -1.64% Co. was the first to offer this bag-in-belt
technology on 2011 Explorers. Now, Mercedes-Benz will offer it on its new
S-Class sedans.
Although traditional lap and shoulder belts prevent
thousands of deaths a year, they can also cause what researchers call
"seat-belt syndrome." The belts can lead to severe injuries to
organs, muscles and spines, especially in violent crashes. Inflatable seat
belts are meant to reduce this risk. Traditional air-bag systems mounted in the
car's steering wheel and elsewhere use a hot gas to rapidly inflate the bag
during a crash. To prevent burns, bag-in-belt systems use a cold gas to inflate
its protective bladder.
Ford says it currently offers bag-in-belt systems on four
models—the Explorer, the Flex wagon, the Lincoln MKT sport utility and the
Lincoln MKZ sedan. About 25% of people who buy those vehicles order the
bag-in-belt option, Ford says. Mercedes says it will likely move the technology
into other models, but isn't outlining specific plans.
Spot Pedestrians in the Dark
Safety regulators around the world are increasingly focused
on motor-vehicle accidents involving pedestrians, and that's spurring
development of new systems to help drivers see people on foot before it's too
late.
More than 4,000 pedestrians a year die in the U.S. after
being hit by a car. Nearly 70,000 were injured in motor-vehicle accidents in
2011, according to government data. Many of these incidents happen at night.
This year, German luxury brand BMW AG BMW.XE -0.64% is
launching a "dynamic-spotlight" technology that uses an infrared
camera mounted behind the grille to see down the road ahead. Software can pick
out the outline of a person (or animal) and signal the car's headlights to
illuminate them—and help prevent a collision. The system also shows an in-cabin
alert, projecting an icon representing a person enclosed in a yellow triangle
onto either a dashboard screen or the windshield.
Design Your Own Dashboard
Dashboards used to be static displays with mechanical dials
and gauges. Now, auto makers are ditching the dials in favor of programmable
screens that can display more information and allow drivers to personalize the
look of the cockpit displays.
The new Lexus IS F-Sport model, due out this June, uses a
thin-film transistor display and a moving tachometer dial (which measures RPMs)
to create a hybrid of the traditional and the new. The technology is adapted
from Lexus's super sports car, the LFA.
By toggling a control on the steering wheel, the driver can
get the big dial in the center of the dashboard to move to the right, revealing
a flat-screen display that can be customized for two different drivers.
"We can change languages, miles per hour to kilometers" and show
information such as route guidance, says Bill Camp of Lexus's training operation,
Lexus University.
Shift Into Ninth Gear
Ever-tougher federal demands for fuel efficiency have led
car makers to add more gears to transmissions. And more. And more.
You don't have to be very old to remember when most cars
came with four-speed transmissions. Now, Chrysler Group LLC says it will
introduce a nine-speed gearbox designed to fit into a relatively small,
front-wheel-drive car.
ZF Friedrichshafen AG, the German company that makes the
nine-speed transmission, says it can improve fuel economy by 10% to 16%
compared with a six-speed automatic, mainly because it offers a wider spread of
gears to keep the engine in the "sweet spot," where it's turning as
slowly as possible to stay at a certain speed.
Such a transmission's challenge lies largely in the software
that controls the vehicle's shifting. Too much and drivers could feel as if the
car is constantly changing gear and not running smoothly. Too little and the
fuel-economy benefits don't materialize.
Michael Ebenhoch, director of ZF's front-drive transmission
development, says that with nine speeds, "we are getting closer to the
maximum" for a passenger car. On the other hand, he says, "the guy
who developed the five speed said we don't need six."
Drive by Computer
Traditionally, steering a car has involved a series of
mechanical connections that allow the wheel in your hands to guide the four
wheels on the road. Infiniti's new Q50 sedan—which replaces the current G
series in the Nissan Motor Corp. 7201.TO -0.52% luxury brand's lineup—boasts the
industry's first so-called steer-by-wire system, which swaps out those
mechanical elements with an all-electronic system.
Proponents say an electronic signal can be faster than a
mechanical linkage at translating what the driver does with the steering wheel
to the road. The electronic system also allows drivers to choose among four
different degrees of serenity or sportiness in the handling. If the electronics
fail, Infiniti says a backup mechanical-linkage system will keep the car under
control.
The steer-by-wire system is part of an array of technology
on board the Q50, including advanced cruise control and radar-enabled braking,
that allows the driver to take control when the road is fun and twisty, but
also enables the car to handle a lot of driving work itself during a routine
commute.
Corrections & Amplifications Vehicle shoulder
straps with built-in air bags are offered on the Lincoln MKZ sedan. An earlier
version of this column incorrectly identified the MKZ as a sport-utility
vehicle.
Article Credit: online.wsj.com
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