4 Technologies We Will Likely Encounter In The Cars Of The Future

Last Monday we talked about the ethics behind seld-driving cars and whether or not it was morally correct for intelligent cars to have the ability to choose who lives and who dies in a life threatening situation where two lives or groups of life are at risk.

This week we want to talk about four technologies that truly seem to have a chance of happening and being features of the cars of the future. We can but speculate, although based on what is being said and what is being tested,  here they are:

1-      Cars that communicate with each other and the road

A new technology called Vehicle-to-Vehicle (V2V) is being developed and tested by manufacturers such as Ford in an attempt to help reduce the number of accidents that occur on the road. It works by sending wireless signals to send information back and forth between cars regarding their location, speed and direction, this information is then communicated to the cars around it, this enabling the other vehicles to keep a safe distance from each other.

2-      Augmented reality dashboards

BMW is currently working on an augmented reality dashboard that will be able to identify external objects that are in front of us and display information about them on the windshield, like what it is, what it is made of and how far away from the object the driver is, overlaying information on top of what the driver sees in real life.

3-      Airbags that help stop cars

Mercedes has been experimenting with a system that uses airbags that deploy from beneath the car to help stop a vehicle before a crash when the system identifies that the collision is inevitable.

4-      Energy-storing body panels

It is estimated that by 2014, half of the cars produced will be hybrids, which is great for the environment, although hybrids do have a downside: their batteries are extremely heavy and take up a lot of space. A group of auto manufacturers are working on a solution for this – energy-storing body panels that can charge faster that today’s conventional batteries and are made of polymer fiber and carbon resin, making it possible to reduce the cars weight by up to 15%.