http://biz.yahoo.com/special/car05_article1.html
The Car of the Future
By Joseph B. White
The Wall Street Journal
It won't look anything like it does now -- both inside and out. Here's how it's shaping up.
Buck Rogers, your ride's here.
The basic concept of a motor vehicle hasn't changed much since Henry Ford. A car is still a box on four wheels, propelled by a petroleum-fueled engine. But over the next decade, the gulf between a 21st-century car and a Model T will get wider than ever before.
Under pressure to make cars safer, smarter and more fuel efficient, auto makers are going back to the drawing board and the testing lab. The result: A surge of innovation and experimentation is coming that the industry hasn't seen since its earliest days.
Increasingly, cars will become electronic thinking machines -- not just mechanical devices. Computer-controlled systems will replace gears and cables for steering, braking and accelerating. Radar technology will allow a car to "see" nearby hazards and even initiate evasive maneuvers. Traditional gas engines are already losing their monopoly to gas-electric hybrids; in the works are engines that run on hydrogen or "bio-diesel" made from inexpensive source material such as cooking oil.
For struggling giants like General Motors Corp. and Ford Motor Co., these developments can either lift them out of their misery -- or leave them further behind. Innovation is one of the surest ways to help auto companies distinguish themselves from competitors. To the most innovative may go the spoils.
New developments in engine technology may also ease regulatory pressure on the industry, as governments and environmental groups pummel the industry for not doing enough to reduce the greenhouse gases that internal-combustion gasoline engines produce.
A Cozier Future
The innovations to come won't just be under the hood or under the sheet metal. Already, a rapidly growing population of new vehicles have satellite radios in their dashboards, offering drivers dozens of channels of programming far more diverse than commercial radio.
Meanwhile, designers are beginning to rethink the interior of cars in radical new ways, to reflect the long hours many people spend commuting. Some recent concept cars from big manufacturers are more like living rooms on wheels, with swiveling seats and amenities like televisions.
Shopping for a new vehicle also has evolved considerably as the Internet has allowed consumers easy -- and usually free -- access to information about invoice pricing, discount deals and features that used to require hours of tramping through showrooms and grilling salespeople.
Car dealers will remain part of any car-buying equation, thanks to strong state franchise laws that effectively block car makers from selling cars directly to consumers. But some car companies, such as Toyota Motor Corp.'s Scion brand, are experimenting with ways to minimize the hassle of haggling, and giving consumers new ways to customize their cars in the showroom. If car makers have their way, new-car dealerships will be much nicer places to visit. At Longo Toyota of Los Angeles, the largest Toyota dealership in the U.S., the showroom offers many of the amenities of a modern shopping mall -- gift shops, coffee bars and space for patrons to fire up laptops while their Camrys and Lexus RX 330s get serviced.
Still, many of the biggest innovations in the pipeline involve electronics. This isn't a new idea, of course. The old line in the auto industry is that the average car has more computing power on board than the Apollo moon rockets, from controlling engine functions to antilock brakes to airbags. But computers are about to take on more automotive roles -- and more decision-making powers -- than ever.
Car makers have embraced electronic stability-control systems, which detect when a car is skidding sideways or rolling and activate brakes to keep the car between the white lines. Mechanical systems that used to handle steering and braking are being replaced with electronic "drive by wire" and "brake by wire" systems that can -- at least in theory -- steer and stop cars more precisely than old-fashioned systems that work with cables, hoses and hydraulic fluid.
BMW AG's "active steering" system, available on certain models, uses small motors and computer controls to vary the amount of steering action based on the circumstances. In a tight parking lot at low speeds, the system will magnify the effect of turning the steering wheel so that it's easier to maneuver out of a narrow parking slot. At higher speeds, the BMW system acts to improve the stability of the car by making the steering firmer. A new version of the system automatically helps the driver keep the car pointed straight when braking on a slippery road.
Cars are getting smarter in other ways. A small but growing number of vehicles have cruise-control systems that can "see" ahead and detect when a vehicle in front is too close, automatically slowing down or speeding up to keep the car at a safe following distance. Coming soon: side-scanning radar systems that detect vehicles in blind spots to either side of the car.
Navigation systems that use global positioning systems to pinpoint a car's position and display it on a dashboard screen quickly made the transition from exotic to commonplace. Now car makers are moving to the next step: offering real-time traffic data that will allow drivers to anticipate tie-ups and plot a course around them in just a few seconds.
But the real challenge for auto makers and technology suppliers is to integrate all the separate safety and guidance systems that have matured to marketability over the past decade. The result would be a car that could, at least in theory, be set to maintain a certain speed, keep a certain distance from other cars and take over when the driver gets in trouble -- applying brakes, controlling steering, and preparing airbags, seat belts and seats to best handle the force of a collision.
While no car maker is proposing to offer a car that actually drives itself, that could ultimately be a choice driven by marketing (and the legal department), not the limits of technology.
Fueling the Future
With equal urgency, car makers are applying advanced technology to the challenge of making vehicles more fuel efficient. In the U.S., with gasoline prices apparently pegged at $2 or more per gallon for the foreseeable future, car makers and consumers are paying attention to mileage again. Elsewhere in the world, government policies increasingly are driven by concerns about "sustainability," which translate to demands on the industry to make vehicles that put less of a burden on the environment.
Officially, big car makers such as GM and Toyota say their ultimate goal is to replace gasoline-fueled internal-combustion engines with fuel cells that convert hydrogen into water and electricity that powers the vehicle. A fuel-cell technology race that began in the late 1990s has produced remarkable advances in the size (smaller is better), reliability and power production of automotive fuel cells.
But there are still substantial obstacles to making fuel cells a mass-market option, starting with the price. Fuel cells currently cost about $500 per kilowatt of energy produced, compared with about $50 per kilowatt for an internal-combustion engine. In a business where making just $1,000 profit per vehicle puts a company at the head of the class, that's a big barrier.
Equally critical is the chicken-and-egg problem of how and where consumers would find hydrogen to "gas up" their fuel-cell cars. Converting the U.S. vehicle-fueling infrastructure to handle hydrogen would cost as much as $12 billion to convert 12,000 stations in the top 100 U.S. cities, according to a GM estimate. Car makers say that the fueling infrastructure has to be in place before they can effectively market fuel-cell vehicles. But the oil industry has shown little enthusiasm for investing in hydrogen-fuel stations in the absence of a commitment from the auto industry to start selling large numbers of hydrogen-fueled cars.
In the meantime, auto makers are investing in alternatives to the fuel-cell ideal -- and the public is grabbing them up. Not long ago, gas-electric hybrid vehicles were geeky gizmos for "early adopters" -- the same people who bought the first Apple personal computers or Sony Beta VCRs. Now hybrids, such as Toyota's Prius sedan and Lexus RX 400 sport-utility, Ford's hybrid Escape SUV and Honda Motor Co.'s hybrid Accord and Civic models, are some of the fastest-selling vehicles on the U.S. market. Toyota is preparing to launch a hybrid version of its top-selling, very mainstream Camry sedan, and GM is promising a hybrid version of its big Chevy Tahoe SUV by 2007.
Hybrids are still a long way from displacing conventional gasoline engines in the U.S. market, but the technology has clearly jumped the gap to mainstream acceptance in the U.S. "It has become symbolic of: 'Is this company technologically capable? Is this company environmentally aware?' " GM Vice Chairman Robert Lutz told an investor conference earlier this year. "And it's a sort of go/no-go gauge. If you have hybrids you're OK, and if you don't you're not."
Refining the Standard
At the same time, some car makers are taking a fresh look at internal-combustion engines, and finding that there's still a lot of room for improvement after a century's worth of tinkering. Honda Chief Executive Officer Takeo Fukui said last year that even the best internal-combustion engines still waste more than 80% of the energy created by burning gasoline. Harnessing more of that energy could yield vehicles that get substantially better fuel economy than the current U.S. average of about 20.8 miles per gallon.
Advances in electronics and software are allowing automotive engineers to revisit fuel-saving ideas they had tried and dropped in the past. DaimlerChrysler AG offers a high-performance version of its Hemi V-8 engine rated at 425 horsepower -- roughly comparable to the legendary 426 Hemi that Chrysler sold in the heyday of the 1960s muscle-car era. But the new Hemi is rated at 20 miles per gallon on the highway, roughly double the mileage of the 1960s car, Chrysler engineers say.
Part of the difference: The new Hemi uses sophisticated electronic controls to ration fuel consumption and shut down four of the eight cylinders when the car is cruising on the highway. This cylinder-shutdown concept -- Chrysler calls it MDS, or multi-displacement system -- isn't new. But now engineers have reliable electronic systems that can make the shift from four to eight cylinders imperceptible to drivers.
Chrysler has used innovation to get out of trouble before, when it stumbled in the 1980s, 1990s and in the early years of this decade. In response, it produced the minivan in the 1980s, the luxury SUV in the early 1990s and in this decade reinvented the big American sedan in the form of the Chrysler 300C.
--Mr. White is chief of The Wall Street Journal's Detroit bureau.
Write to Joseph B. White at joseph.white@wsj.com
The Car of the Future
By Joseph B. White
The Wall Street Journal
It won't look anything like it does now -- both inside and out. Here's how it's shaping up.
Buck Rogers, your ride's here.
The basic concept of a motor vehicle hasn't changed much since Henry Ford. A car is still a box on four wheels, propelled by a petroleum-fueled engine. But over the next decade, the gulf between a 21st-century car and a Model T will get wider than ever before.
Under pressure to make cars safer, smarter and more fuel efficient, auto makers are going back to the drawing board and the testing lab. The result: A surge of innovation and experimentation is coming that the industry hasn't seen since its earliest days.
Increasingly, cars will become electronic thinking machines -- not just mechanical devices. Computer-controlled systems will replace gears and cables for steering, braking and accelerating. Radar technology will allow a car to "see" nearby hazards and even initiate evasive maneuvers. Traditional gas engines are already losing their monopoly to gas-electric hybrids; in the works are engines that run on hydrogen or "bio-diesel" made from inexpensive source material such as cooking oil.
For struggling giants like General Motors Corp. and Ford Motor Co., these developments can either lift them out of their misery -- or leave them further behind. Innovation is one of the surest ways to help auto companies distinguish themselves from competitors. To the most innovative may go the spoils.
New developments in engine technology may also ease regulatory pressure on the industry, as governments and environmental groups pummel the industry for not doing enough to reduce the greenhouse gases that internal-combustion gasoline engines produce.
A Cozier Future
The innovations to come won't just be under the hood or under the sheet metal. Already, a rapidly growing population of new vehicles have satellite radios in their dashboards, offering drivers dozens of channels of programming far more diverse than commercial radio.
Meanwhile, designers are beginning to rethink the interior of cars in radical new ways, to reflect the long hours many people spend commuting. Some recent concept cars from big manufacturers are more like living rooms on wheels, with swiveling seats and amenities like televisions.
Shopping for a new vehicle also has evolved considerably as the Internet has allowed consumers easy -- and usually free -- access to information about invoice pricing, discount deals and features that used to require hours of tramping through showrooms and grilling salespeople.
Car dealers will remain part of any car-buying equation, thanks to strong state franchise laws that effectively block car makers from selling cars directly to consumers. But some car companies, such as Toyota Motor Corp.'s Scion brand, are experimenting with ways to minimize the hassle of haggling, and giving consumers new ways to customize their cars in the showroom. If car makers have their way, new-car dealerships will be much nicer places to visit. At Longo Toyota of Los Angeles, the largest Toyota dealership in the U.S., the showroom offers many of the amenities of a modern shopping mall -- gift shops, coffee bars and space for patrons to fire up laptops while their Camrys and Lexus RX 330s get serviced.
Still, many of the biggest innovations in the pipeline involve electronics. This isn't a new idea, of course. The old line in the auto industry is that the average car has more computing power on board than the Apollo moon rockets, from controlling engine functions to antilock brakes to airbags. But computers are about to take on more automotive roles -- and more decision-making powers -- than ever.
Car makers have embraced electronic stability-control systems, which detect when a car is skidding sideways or rolling and activate brakes to keep the car between the white lines. Mechanical systems that used to handle steering and braking are being replaced with electronic "drive by wire" and "brake by wire" systems that can -- at least in theory -- steer and stop cars more precisely than old-fashioned systems that work with cables, hoses and hydraulic fluid.
BMW AG's "active steering" system, available on certain models, uses small motors and computer controls to vary the amount of steering action based on the circumstances. In a tight parking lot at low speeds, the system will magnify the effect of turning the steering wheel so that it's easier to maneuver out of a narrow parking slot. At higher speeds, the BMW system acts to improve the stability of the car by making the steering firmer. A new version of the system automatically helps the driver keep the car pointed straight when braking on a slippery road.
Cars are getting smarter in other ways. A small but growing number of vehicles have cruise-control systems that can "see" ahead and detect when a vehicle in front is too close, automatically slowing down or speeding up to keep the car at a safe following distance. Coming soon: side-scanning radar systems that detect vehicles in blind spots to either side of the car.
Navigation systems that use global positioning systems to pinpoint a car's position and display it on a dashboard screen quickly made the transition from exotic to commonplace. Now car makers are moving to the next step: offering real-time traffic data that will allow drivers to anticipate tie-ups and plot a course around them in just a few seconds.
But the real challenge for auto makers and technology suppliers is to integrate all the separate safety and guidance systems that have matured to marketability over the past decade. The result would be a car that could, at least in theory, be set to maintain a certain speed, keep a certain distance from other cars and take over when the driver gets in trouble -- applying brakes, controlling steering, and preparing airbags, seat belts and seats to best handle the force of a collision.
While no car maker is proposing to offer a car that actually drives itself, that could ultimately be a choice driven by marketing (and the legal department), not the limits of technology.
Fueling the Future
With equal urgency, car makers are applying advanced technology to the challenge of making vehicles more fuel efficient. In the U.S., with gasoline prices apparently pegged at $2 or more per gallon for the foreseeable future, car makers and consumers are paying attention to mileage again. Elsewhere in the world, government policies increasingly are driven by concerns about "sustainability," which translate to demands on the industry to make vehicles that put less of a burden on the environment.
Officially, big car makers such as GM and Toyota say their ultimate goal is to replace gasoline-fueled internal-combustion engines with fuel cells that convert hydrogen into water and electricity that powers the vehicle. A fuel-cell technology race that began in the late 1990s has produced remarkable advances in the size (smaller is better), reliability and power production of automotive fuel cells.
But there are still substantial obstacles to making fuel cells a mass-market option, starting with the price. Fuel cells currently cost about $500 per kilowatt of energy produced, compared with about $50 per kilowatt for an internal-combustion engine. In a business where making just $1,000 profit per vehicle puts a company at the head of the class, that's a big barrier.
Equally critical is the chicken-and-egg problem of how and where consumers would find hydrogen to "gas up" their fuel-cell cars. Converting the U.S. vehicle-fueling infrastructure to handle hydrogen would cost as much as $12 billion to convert 12,000 stations in the top 100 U.S. cities, according to a GM estimate. Car makers say that the fueling infrastructure has to be in place before they can effectively market fuel-cell vehicles. But the oil industry has shown little enthusiasm for investing in hydrogen-fuel stations in the absence of a commitment from the auto industry to start selling large numbers of hydrogen-fueled cars.
In the meantime, auto makers are investing in alternatives to the fuel-cell ideal -- and the public is grabbing them up. Not long ago, gas-electric hybrid vehicles were geeky gizmos for "early adopters" -- the same people who bought the first Apple personal computers or Sony Beta VCRs. Now hybrids, such as Toyota's Prius sedan and Lexus RX 400 sport-utility, Ford's hybrid Escape SUV and Honda Motor Co.'s hybrid Accord and Civic models, are some of the fastest-selling vehicles on the U.S. market. Toyota is preparing to launch a hybrid version of its top-selling, very mainstream Camry sedan, and GM is promising a hybrid version of its big Chevy Tahoe SUV by 2007.
Hybrids are still a long way from displacing conventional gasoline engines in the U.S. market, but the technology has clearly jumped the gap to mainstream acceptance in the U.S. "It has become symbolic of: 'Is this company technologically capable? Is this company environmentally aware?' " GM Vice Chairman Robert Lutz told an investor conference earlier this year. "And it's a sort of go/no-go gauge. If you have hybrids you're OK, and if you don't you're not."
Refining the Standard
At the same time, some car makers are taking a fresh look at internal-combustion engines, and finding that there's still a lot of room for improvement after a century's worth of tinkering. Honda Chief Executive Officer Takeo Fukui said last year that even the best internal-combustion engines still waste more than 80% of the energy created by burning gasoline. Harnessing more of that energy could yield vehicles that get substantially better fuel economy than the current U.S. average of about 20.8 miles per gallon.
Advances in electronics and software are allowing automotive engineers to revisit fuel-saving ideas they had tried and dropped in the past. DaimlerChrysler AG offers a high-performance version of its Hemi V-8 engine rated at 425 horsepower -- roughly comparable to the legendary 426 Hemi that Chrysler sold in the heyday of the 1960s muscle-car era. But the new Hemi is rated at 20 miles per gallon on the highway, roughly double the mileage of the 1960s car, Chrysler engineers say.
Part of the difference: The new Hemi uses sophisticated electronic controls to ration fuel consumption and shut down four of the eight cylinders when the car is cruising on the highway. This cylinder-shutdown concept -- Chrysler calls it MDS, or multi-displacement system -- isn't new. But now engineers have reliable electronic systems that can make the shift from four to eight cylinders imperceptible to drivers.
Chrysler has used innovation to get out of trouble before, when it stumbled in the 1980s, 1990s and in the early years of this decade. In response, it produced the minivan in the 1980s, the luxury SUV in the early 1990s and in this decade reinvented the big American sedan in the form of the Chrysler 300C.
--Mr. White is chief of The Wall Street Journal's Detroit bureau.
Write to Joseph B. White at joseph.white@wsj.com
