Counterattack! How do traditional cars cope with the challenges of technology?

    Although traditional automakers have unshakable advantages in manufacturing technology and market channels, in the face of the Internet of Vehicles and the trend of intelligence, the old-fashioned manufacturing of cars has become outdated. In addition to developing driverless cars, which are becoming more and more familiar to people, like technology companies, traditional automakers also need to add new intelligent features or integrate technological elements into their products. Therefore, this has become one of the directions that traditional automakers need to work hard on.

    Let’s take a look at how traditional car manufacturers use the power of technology and the Internet to face the challenges posed by technology manufacturers.

Volvo can send signals to other vehicles when it encounters danger

    Volvo Cars has recently developed a new system that can use data monitored by one car to send warnings to other nearby cars, allowing more drivers to avoid dangerous sections of the road ahead or take a detour.

    The technology obtains information from the road through sensors built into the wheels, and then transmits the data to a server via GPS positioning technology, which then sends the data to other nearby cars equipped with the system.

    On the dashboard of the test vehicle, an icon will appear to indicate dangerous road conditions ahead. As the car gets closer to the danger zone, the icon will get bigger and bigger. The system is also connected to the car's hazard warning lights, and the car will perform a self-check when the warning is issued. At the same time, the system will also send a signal to all other nearby cars equipped with the system.

    At present, the concept of "vehicle-to-vehicle" has gradually begun to be used in automotive products. Some researchers hope to develop more complex systems that will allow cars to continuously exchange driving data remotely and receive notifications from other vehicles before encountering traffic jams or potentially dangerous road conditions.

BMW Wireless Charging for Electric Vehicles

    Pure electric vehicles and plug-in hybrid vehicles are the important development direction of the future automobile industry, and are gradually being accepted by more and more mass consumers. However, for owners of these new cars, the most frustrating thing is probably to find out that you forgot to plug in the charging cable for your car the night before you go out. Now, the new generation of wireless inductive charging technology that BMW is developing can achieve the same charging speed as wired charging, and the owner can start charging by just pressing a button after parking in the garage.

    The owner parks the car in a parking space with an inductive charger underneath, then presses the charging button on the dashboard to start charging. While charging, the owner can view the charging progress on the dashboard or through a dedicated mobile app on a smartphone or tablet (Wi-Fi connection between the charger, car and mobile device is required). BMW also said that the mobile app can even help the owner park the car in the right position above the charger.

    The inductive charging system consists of two important components: a primary coil installed in a base in the garage or parking space, and a secondary coil installed on the vehicle chassis. To ensure safety, the magnetic field range of both coils is limited to a small area. The primary coil transmits electrical energy to the secondary coil through the change of the magnetic field. The charging power is 3.6 kilowatts, which is enough to fully charge the high-voltage battery of many plug-in hybrid vehicles within three hours.

    BMW claims that the current prototype system has a charging efficiency of up to 90% and can charge a BMW i8 in 2 hours. Another advantage of the inductive charging system is that it is not affected by weather conditions - since all components are "hidden", it can be used outdoors "in rain or shine". If a foreign object enters the magnetic field between the base and the car chassis, the system will automatically cut off the charging.

Audi Intelligent Traffic Light Recognition System

    Fuel economy has become a crucial factor in purchasing a vehicle. In addition, your driving style will also affect the fuel economy of the vehicle. Recently, Audi is conducting a test to install a system inside the vehicle that can "interact" with local traffic lights to predict changes in traffic lights to save fuel and reduce carbon dioxide emissions.

    Audi said that their system can tell the driver what speed to reach the next intersection when the traffic light at this intersection is green, thereby reducing the fuel wasted when the engine is idling. In addition, it can also calculate when the traffic light turns red. And use the vehicle's start-stop technology to start the car 5 seconds before the green light comes on. If the driver has encountered a red light, the dashboard can display the remaining time, and at the same time, turn on the start mode with the lowest fuel consumption and carbon dioxide emissions when switching to green light; of course, it can also avoid congested sections according to the traffic light conditions and provide smoother navigation road suggestions.

    It is reported that vehicles equipped with this device can reduce carbon dioxide emissions by 15%. In addition, Audi said that if this system is applied to vehicles across Germany, it will save 240 million gallons of fuel, equivalent to 900 million liters of fuel.

Land Rover Smart Window Technology

    Land Rover recently released a near-future in-car connectivity technology that not only improves driving safety, but also makes travel more fun. Most of the windows of its models, including the windshield, have intelligent display features that can display detailed information such as navigation traffic information, surrounding points of interest, and even pictures. When you look back or sideways to observe the surrounding environment, the in-car projection will project the images taken by the cameras arranged outside the car body to the corresponding area to eliminate visual obstructions.

    At the same time, the windshield and windows will also have tips for pedestrians, road signs, and locations. The most attractive one is the "Follow me" virtual car, which can help drivers relieve driving pressure, focus more on the surrounding road conditions, and reduce distraction when finding the way.

    At night, the skylight can even be overlaid with constellations, so you can enjoy the starry sky with your loved ones. In addition, the ultimate direction of this technology is to turn car windows into smartphones or tablets, display emails, browse web pages, etc., and turn the car into a complete smart terminal.

Nissan's smartwatch can monitor driver status

    Smart watches are not exclusive to mobile phone manufacturers, and traditional car manufacturers are also trying to "fight back" against technology companies in the market. Nissan Motorsport, a subsidiary of Nissan Motor, has launched its own brand Nismo smart watch, the Nismo Watch.

    The positioning of Nissan's Nismo Watch is completely different from that of Galaxy Gear and other products. Its wearers are mainly racing drivers, and its basic function is to monitor and analyze vehicle performance. Of course, in addition to this, it can also record the wearer's heart rate and share social content. Users can achieve these functions on the corresponding smartphone app via Bluetooth.

    Nismo Watch can display the vehicle's driving efficiency, average speed, fuel consumption and other in-vehicle intelligent system information, and can also display the driver's heart rate through a built-in heart rate meter. In order to obtain various vehicle information, Nismo Watch requires a smartphone with a dedicated application installed and connected to the vehicle, and then communicates with the phone through a low-power version of Bluetooth. In addition to obtaining information, Nismo Watch can also give some prompts to the driver, such as reminding the driver to slow down when the heart rate and vehicle speed soar at the same time, and can also send Twitter or Facebook messages.

BMW uses tablets and gestures to control its cars

    In fact, there are many examples of cooperation between technology companies and traditional car manufacturers. For example, BMW and Samsung demonstrated a deeply integrated system. The whole system includes a Samsung Android tablet and a base placed in the back row, which allows rear passengers to change the air conditioning temperature, turn on and off the radio, adjust the seat angle, etc. In general, the new technology turns the tablet into a new portable iDrive controller.

    In addition, BMW is also very experienced in integrating touch screens and gesture control. Although the use of screen technology on car screens has become common, gesture control is still relatively rare in the automotive field. According to reports, BMW installs a camera on the top of the car, which will capture some simple commands made by the driver's right hand, such as waving and drawing circles. These actions can be input into the system through programming, for example, waving can mean rejecting an incoming call, and drawing circles can adjust the volume of music.

Mazda Adaptive LED Headlights

    When driving in the countryside without street lights, everyone needs to turn on the high beam to see the situation ahead clearly. However, the high beam is too concentrated and bright, which can easily cause trouble to other drivers. Now Mazda has developed a new solution to avoid this from happening.

    Mazda's new ALH "Adaptive LED Array Headlight" technology can divide the LED light group of the headlight into four independent control modules, detect oncoming and front vehicles through the camera, and then disable the lighting of LED lights in specific directions, effectively avoiding the inconvenience of high beams to others and the trouble of constantly switching between high and low beams when driving.

    Adaptive LED headlight technology is known for its wide range of short-focal-length light. LED bulbs are added to the sides of the headlights to illuminate the edge of the road in front of the car. The highway mode automatically increases the front illumination angle when the car is driving at high speed to illuminate road signs and road obstacles ahead.

    The new intelligent LED headlights can realize the road ahead but not directly illuminate the vehicle in front, which means you can keep the high beam on without affecting other vehicles. Even for the low beam, engineers have improved the safety factor of driving by widening its wide angle of illumination, making it easier for drivers to distinguish pedestrians or animals on the roadside. In night mode, the headlights automatically level through motor adjustment, automatically increase the front illumination angle, illuminate the road signs and road obstacles ahead, and the driver can see the traffic signs earlier when driving at high speed.

Jaguar Smart Window Lift Technology

    Jaguar recently demonstrated a window lift mechanism that can be operated by gestures, which may replace the existing physical window lift buttons in the future. The technology will be based on one or more sensors. When the passenger in the car puts his hand on a specific area of ​​the window, the sensor can recognize the window lift command through the human gesture.

    However, the technology is still in the experimental stage and will not be installed in the new cars released recently. However, in the future, this technology will be applied to real cars like the inductive trunk switch. This technology will be able to be applied to the opening and closing of the lights in the car, the opening and closing of the glove box and even the opening and closing of the car doors at the same time.

    Regarding the safety of this technology, Jaguar Land Rover said that the technology is still under trial. As cars become more and more intelligent and more and more sensors are added to cars, the challenges of system conflicts, anti-theft and collisions to sensors will become more and more obvious. Therefore, all car companies will fully consider the safety of the technology before introducing it.

Modern head-up display system

    When we are driving, even if we don't make calls or send text messages, we occasionally need to look down at the dashboard, tachometer or navigation screen, which will bring certain safety risks. Therefore, the head-up display system has become a good solution. Although some mid-to-high-end models are now equipped with a head-up display system, it seems that it only has basic information such as speed and tachometer.

    Hyundai Motor has just launched a new head-up display system, which not only displays traditional information such as vehicle speed, but also displays information such as vehicle cruise system status, GPS navigation, blind spot detection, and lane departure warning. In addition, this system can also display some road information in the form of animation, such as warning signs when other vehicles merge into the lane ahead, front collisions, and arrows to guide driving when encountering road exits. In addition, the system can also monitor the driver's heart rate and automatically issue an emergency notification if the driver's heart rate is abnormal.

BMW's voice or smartwatch-controlled automatic parking

    For ordinary drivers, especially novices, parking is a very technical and headache-inducing task. Therefore, automatic parking technology came into being. Although many models are currently equipped with automatic parking functions, to be honest, most of them remain at the semi-automatic level, and the driver still needs to change the gear or park in a suitable position to achieve it.

    Recently, BMW demonstrated its new remote automatic parking technology, and the biggest highlight of this technology is that car owners can park automatically remotely through smart watches. With just one click, the car can park and drive out automatically. When the smart watch receives the voice command, the car will automatically leave the parking space and drive out to the garage exit. The device can also calculate the time to drive out of the parking space to ensure that the car is waiting there when the owner arrives.

    BMW's technology is equipped with four advanced laser scanners on the car, which automatically scan the surrounding environment in the parking lot and detect obstacles or walls. When driving to the parking lot entrance, the driver only needs to get out of the car and activate the automatic parking function. The vehicle will automatically identify the structural characteristics of the current parking lot and avoid unexpected dangers such as wrongly parked vehicles. According to BMW, this device can even find parking spaces and identify which ones are empty.