It’s hard to spend more than a few minutes online these days without stumbling on at least a couple articles about modern cars and where the future will take them.
More often than not, the main focus of articles like these is the power plant — or the engine — that drives them.
Internal combustion engines have been the mainstay of road-going vehicles since the very beginning.
Although the electric engine did have a promising start back in the early 20th century — even taking the honor of being the first to drive a four-wheeled vehicle past the 60-mph milestone — that particular branch of the family tree more or less stopped growing until the 1990s, when environmental concerns spawned a resurgence.
Since that topic’s been covered ad nauseam, I’m going to avoid it for the purpose of this article.
The advancements in automotive technology merely start with the engine. Today we stand at the crossroads of multiple technological trends, and in the next couple years, you will likely find all of these making it into even the most affordable cars on the market.
Here are just a few standout examples…
1.) Heads-Up Displays (HUDs): An idea borrowed from modern-day fighter aircraft, the heads-up display on a consumer vehicle consists of a screen mounted inside the dashboard that reflects information onto the inside of your windshield.
The benefit is that you can get basic data, like speed and RPM readings, without having to glance away from the road.
On more expensive models, an HUD will also display GPS instructions and even give you warnings about things like traffic accidents or debris on the road.
But that’s what’s already out there today. Within five years, HUDs will be displaying information overlaid atop the actual view of the outside world: exit signs will be highlighted, police cars will show up in red, and so on.
How much does this help you? Well, I have an HUD on my car, and I will say it beats having to take my eyes off the road. Do I want one on my next car? Definitely.
2.) Biometric Scanning: Also not a completely new idea, basic biometric scanning has existed for years on items requiring high-security access protocols. It’s used on high-tech gun safes, as well as on access points to high-security facilities like banks and hospitals.
The idea is definitely cool, but it’s also useful, as it can once and for all do away with the need for a key or key fob — just another item for a scatterbrained car owner to lose.
It also adds a great deal of real security, because unlike radio-frequency fobs or traditional keys, your fingerprint cannot be counterfeited with anything short of CIA-level gadgetry.
This item has yet to make it onto any mass-marketed vehicles, but I have seen the option offered as an aftermarket device for those well-heeled (and paranoid) enough to retrofit their cars with it.
As the trend goes, however, things will get cheaper, better, more reliable, and more effective. In time, this will be the standard.
3.) Decrease in Displacement: When talking about the power their engines make, die-hard gearheads have often said, “There’s no replacement for displacement.”
Today, that old adage is being turned on its head, as a contingent of performance carmakers are starting to default to smaller cylinder sizes (and cylinder counts) in favor of higher-revving, turbo, or supercharged power plants.
Even without the benefit of an electric hybrid to provide some extra power and torque, high-performance engines have reversed a ubiquitous decades-long trend.
A great example is the current BMW 3 and 4 series lineup. After cramming a V8 into its M3 sports car for an entire model generation (about four years), BMW has decided to leave the large blocks to the Americans and assume the European and Japanese trend of boosting pressure to increase horsepower.
The result is a three-liter twin turbo with 425 horsepower and 400 lb./ft. of torque — a significant improvement over its larger eight-cylinder predecessor. To those of you unfamiliar with the standards, that’s the power level you would have gotten from a mid-2000s Ferrari California.
Combine that with copious amounts of carbon fiber, and you end up with a four-seat coupe that can beat that same Ferrari to 60 mph and do so without getting less than 20 miles to the gallon.
Oh yeah, and it’s about one-third the cost, too.
As a car guy, those are the sorts of numbers I can fully get behind.
4.) Vehicle Tracking: So this might be less fun and exciting than the previous innovations, but it may actually save you money in the long run.
I had my first experience with insurance carrier-mandated tracking several years ago, when Progressive gave me the option of installing a transponder in my car to measure how many miles I drive.
Before anybody gets worked up over potential NSA-style snooping, the transponder does not document speed. It merely documents when the car is in motion and when it isn’t and totals up the miles traveled via cell tower triangulation.
The result is that my insurance premiums went down immediately, as Progressive no longer had to accept my own estimates (and adjust upward accordingly).
Don’t like being snooped on? Easy — don’t agree to use the thing. Just send it back. However, let it be known that if you have GPS on your car or if you own a cell phone at all, anybody who wants to track your location can already do so.
Most of us are comfortable assuming that nobody does.
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5.) Integrated Health Monitoring: Ever been to a doctor’s office where they took your pulse and oxygenation readings with a simple thumb reader?
Devices very similar to these medical diagnostic tools will eventually make it into your car and become synced to emergency response systems like OnStar — which are already capable of detecting signs of trouble like airbag deployment.
Once the bioreaders find their way into your steering wheel, your car will be able to determine when you’re having (or are about to have) a heart attack. Coupled with self-parking features like those already available on some luxury models, this will result in a vehicle that will stop, park itself, and call an ambulance.
Never mind heads-up displays and hundreds of horsepower from a lawnmower engine; that’s the kind of innovation that can truly save lives (and even lower insurance rates at the same time).
A Counterpoint
For every technological leap, however, there seems to be a commensurate leap backwards in human behavior.
We stopped needing maps, remembering directions, or even using posted signs the moment GPS became prevalent. Today, I don’t even drive to places I know how to find without first plugging in the destination.
Just today, I learned that the state of Maryland, my home state, has removed the parallel parking requirement to get a driver’s license.
The justification? There was no justification at all — except that cars are starting to do that on their own now, and people were never very good at it to begin with.
Is this progress or regress we’re talking about?
I’ll put this answer in the form of an anecdote…
I recently bought a car that, aside from the aforementioned HUD, features six external cameras and short-range radar to help you park without hitting anything.
It’ll show you where you are in relation to your surroundings and start beeping at you, displaying objects in dangerous proximity highlighted in red on the display.
Before getting this car, I never once had any issues parking — never so much as grazed another car or concrete barrier.
With the warning system now there to constantly coach and “assist” me, however, I’ve now run my brand new car into a concrete wall on three separate occasions — not because the warning system failed but because I learned that the warning system was overzealous and decided to override it with my own, now-compromised spatial awareness.
So the result of this 21st century innovation is a brand-new shiny car with two scratches on the bumper.
What are these other innovations going to lead to in terms of loss of human involvement and awareness? I guess we’ll see soon enough.
Fortune favors the bold,
Alex Koyfman
Check us out on YouTube!His flagship service, Microcap Insider, provides market-beating insights into some of the fastest moving, highest profit-potential companies available for public trading on the U.S. and Canadian exchanges. With more than 5 years of track record to back it up, Microcap Insider is the choice for the growth-minded investor. Alex contributes his thoughts and insights regularly to Wealth Daily. To learn more about Alex, click here.
