Your car will be the ultimate smart device

Mid- to high-end models of Volkswagen to hit the roads in 2014 will have dashboard screens that display contents of your smartphone.

Smartphone apps will appear on vehicle-mounted controls , making them easier to use while driving. This integration, which uses Bluetooth to help the smartphone interact with the car radio to display apps on a dashboard screen, is among many of the in-car innovations, where computers, telecom services and cars are converging. Besides the smartphone-to-dashboard integration, cars are relying on computers to improve efficiency and safety. So much so that future car buyers may be more concerned about car connectivity and onboard processing power than about brake horse power (BHP) or torque.

At the Consumer Electronic Show in Las Vegas in January internet giant Google joined hands with carmakers GM, Audi, Honda and Hyundai to develop cars that have Google's mobile operating system, Android, integrated into them. These are expected to hit the roads by end 2014. Apple has patented a touchscreen dashboard system for cars and is working with Honda and BMW to integrate its mobile operating system iOS into cars.

Closer home, Wipro, which in 2013 joined the Car Connectivity Consortium , a group of technology companies and automakers, is working on technologies to integrate cars with smartphones . Telecom services provider Vodafone has tied up with the Mahindra Group for a connected car solution. This will help users of Mahindra's eco-friendly e2o cars do things like remotely activate air-cons or know the electric car's battery charge level via a mobile app.

"The car is becoming the ultimate mobile device," says Thilo Koslowski, vice-president and analyst at Gartner, who specializes in advanced in-car electronics. Koslowski believes by 2018, aided by on-board computers, 20% of all new vehicles will be selfaware , capturing their system status (engine), positioning and surroundings state (in traffic) in real time.

Adds CV Raman, executive director, engineering, Maruti Suzuki : "Getting into a car will soon look like getting into a mini-home office. Computer consumption in cars is increasing at a rapid pace, enhancing the efficiency of the car mechanics." That, of course, is more true for Maruti's higher end cars like Swift Dzire, SX4 and Ertiga rather than the Wagon R.

Chips or microcontrollers were first introduced in cars to improve traction control systems, engines, airbags and antilock brakes. The use of chips means that brake pedals don't directly push hydraulic fluid and accelerator pedals no longer directly pull throttle cables. Instead, computers interpret the mechanical changes and take appropriate action. Computers now supplement human judgement in car driving. "That's why more computers are being used for an overall better driving experience ," adds Raman.

Computers are upgrading cars in three areas : safety, engine control and infotainment. "There are no limits to use of computers. In fact they will get powerful and better to improve all the three areas," says Raman.

The smart chips that go into engine control units (ECUs) are improving in their processing capabilities and eventually what they can do to improve the car driving experience and safety.

Says Vivek Tyagi, country sales director, Freescale Semiconductor: "Under the hood, practically each part is getting a smart makeover. The brakes and air bags are controlled by computers. The engine has controllers to improve fuel efficiency and reduce emissions. And finally there are body controllers that warn drivers of likely collisions, activate de-foggers automatically and even control wipers via in-built rain sensors." If it's light rain, the wiper will adjust to slow speed, compared to maximum speed in a heavy thundershower, without any manual intervention.

Freescale, the $4-billion American chipmaker , gets 45% of its business from auto companies. Tyagi says computer content in cars is increasing by about 15% a year. "Most cars have an 8-bit computer and in high-end cars it could be a 32-bit processor. Car computers process information in real time, but don't have a graphic port that our desktop or laptop computers have. The processed information is sent to an LCD display. In most cars there are no mechanical gauges now as computer processors send information to virtual dashboards ," adds Tyagi. The chip that helps adjust the side mirrors or operate wipers automatically is an 8-bit one while an engine control unit has a 32-bit chip.

Apart from the need to improve driver experience and make cars smarter, computer consumption is increasing as it helps meet tighter regulatory norms. For instance India is moving from Bharat Stage (BS) 3 to 4 emission norms and will soon migrate to BS 4-plus norms. These are similar to emission norms in the European Union, which have moved to Euro 5. Each new norm calls for lowering harmful exhaust emissions like carbon dioxide and nitrous oxide. Says Tyagi: "Cars need sensors to check emission levels and comply with norms. These sensors sync up with the fuel consumption of the car and adjust amount of fuel burnt in the engine."

Globally, regulation is driving carmakers to look at technology for multiple answers . For instance, in Europe from 2015 onwards, cars have to be fitted with systems that call emergency services automatically in case of an accident. eCall, as the service has been dubbed, means that all new cars will be fitted with SIM cards (ones that go into mobile phones) which automatically dial emergency services in accident situations.

Vodafone is one of the service providers working towards this solution. It has tied up with carmakers like BMW to offer SIM cards. These SIMs have a lifespan of over 10 years and work in a temperature range of -40 ° C to 85° C, with anti-corrosion built in.

Says Gartners' Koslowski: "Originally electronics were used for engine management , now they power virtually every aspect of an automobile. These technologies will play a crucial role in preventing, minimizing accidents and ultimately achieving the goal of zero accidents."

Driving off the mobile While that goal could mark the eventual makeover of the car, manufacturers are trying out new tricks to improve safety and add more bells and whistles.

For instance Vodafone's partnership with Mahindra e2o is bringing to cars such comforts like managing doors from a smartphone, locating nearest charging stations for the electric car and how much distance can the car travel with the current battery charge. Says Naveen Chopra, director, Vodafone Business Services: "Mahindra e2o is a connected car, with the link to user established via a mobile app." At the other end of the spectrum, Mercedes is trying to not just get "internet in the car, but we make the car part of the internet, with its own IP address," according to Benjamin Oberkersch, a spokesperson for Mercedes-Benz Cars.

He adds: "There's a trend to use cloud computing in cars. All Mercedes apps are on the cloud, which drivers and passengers can download onto their car dashboards . These give information like live traffic updates."

Mercedes believes integration of intelligent devices and cars can have a significant bearing on the cars of tomorrow. For example, a smartphone connected to the car will inform the driver of fuel left, the vehicle's location and even reassure you that you have remembered to lock the doors. Another future concept is what Mercedes calls the Predictive User Experience, which learns about your driving habits and gives you options based upon them.

For example, if you frequently call your wife during your commute to home, it will connect you to her on the dashboard screen without you having to look up your smartphone menu. And if you prefer the air-con to be set at, say, 21° it will remember this and ask whether you'd like that setting when you get into the car.

The future is far fancier, with options of a driverless car. The downside, though, is that drivers will be out of jobs. Google is testing driverless cars in California with almost a quarter million dollars of computers loaded in the car. The self-driving cars use quad-core computers that process 1.3 million laser measurements each second and make 20 driving decisions. While such innovations will do a lot for improving car safety, much of that future won't come to Indian roads in a hurry.

As Raman says: "Technologies can enable a lot, but we need infrastructure to support the features. For instance, lane departure warning systems seen in countries like Japan won't work here." Nonetheless, in future car buyers will look at a car's technical specs and processing power and might make their buying decisions based on the dashboard's capabilities to update them on social media, enable conferencing via backseat videos, activate climate control or switch to auto-pilot driving mode on monotonous journeys.