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Car tech: The connected car arrives

Automobile technology has become so advanced that today’s cars are essentially computers with wheels. So why aren’t we using them to surf the Web, communicate with other cars or order food at nearby restaurants?

We’re well on our way. Current models of several cars, including the Ford Edge, the Audi A6 and the Lincoln MKX, can all connect to the Internet over Wi-Fi or 3G networks. These connections bring streaming audio and video, Twitter feeds, spoken text messages and current traffic information into the vehicle.

And that’s just the beginning. In the near future, you’ll be able to browse the Web and get Facebook updates on your in-car navigation screen. And in coming years, wireless standards such as dedicated short-range communications (DSRC) will help cars connect to one another and to the road infrastructure, communicating real-time road conditions and other helpful information.

There are still numerous technical, legal and privacy issues to be worked out, not to mention major concerns over distracted driving and safety. But like it or not, the day of the connected car is dawning.

Bringing the Internet into the car

Ford is among the automakers leading the connected-car charge. Take, for instance, the Ford Edge. The 2011 and 2012 models of the souped-up crossover let you create your own in-car hotspot: Just plug your own mobile broadband modem or smartphone into one of the two USB ports, then share the connection with all your passengers over Wi-Fi.

And the company’s Sync platform, built by Microsoft, provides a range of connected features including voice-controlled navigation with turn-by-turn directions, 4-1-1 business search and personalized traffic alerts. You can also plug in a music player via USB or pair a phone to the car via Bluetooth, then use voice commands to play music over the car’s stereo system, make a call or have your text messages read aloud to you — no headset required.

The Edge and other vehicles, such as the Lincoln MKX, have built-in touch displays that work much like a tablet or smartphone. Now used primarily for navigation and in-car controls (such as playing the radio), such displays will offer Web browsing in the next few years in many makes and models, according to George Peterson, the president of Detroit-based market research and consulting firm AutoPacific.

The Edge can already connect to Wi-Fi hotspots, and a Web browser will be available on its 8.3-inch navigation screen in the next few months, according to Ford spokesperson Alan Hall, who declined to be more specific about timing. The browser will be operational only while the vehicle is parked, he says. The idea is that when you park anywhere near Wi-Fi, you’ll be able to tap into the Web.

In the next few years, almost all new cars will offer built-in browsing and other Net-connected apps, says Peterson. Meanwhile, he says, Ford’s strategy is to use smartphones as the primary interface. About a dozen Ford cars, SUVs and trucks now support the company’s Sync AppLink technology, which lets you control certain Android, iOS or BlackBerry apps using voice commands or, in some models, the touch panel or buttons on the steering wheel.

Current AppLink-enabled apps include Pandora streaming music, Stitcher Internet radio, the iHeartRadio music player and OpenBeak, a Twitter app. All four have been optimized for voice control, and OpenBeak can read tweets aloud so your eyes stay on the road.

In October 2010, the company began releasing its software development kit to other developers interested in creating AppLink-enabled apps, but according to Doug VanDagens, director of connected services for Ford, the company doesn’t make its API available to just any developer who wants to make apps for Ford cars.

“We pick high-volume trusted partners [whose products], we believe, are safe for use in the car — so no gaming, no highly graphic-intensive things. There’s all kinds of people who want to provide functionality in the car that we’re just not interested in — it’s not safe,” he says.

Several other automakers have followed Ford’s lead, offering voice-enabled smartphone app integration with select 2012 models. Examples include Buick IntelliLink, BMW ConnectedDrive, Cadillac Cue, Chevrolet MyLink, Mini Connected and Toyota Entune. Toyota’s Entune service, available with the 2012 Prius V, Camry and Tacoma, currently offers the most apps, with Bing search, iHeartRadio, Movietickets.com, OpenTable, Pandora and various data services including stock price updates, traffic reports and weather forecasts.

Another highly connected vehicle is the Audi A8. Chuhee Lee, a senior staff engineer with VW/Audi, says the A8 supports Google Earth so you can “pre-visualize” your travel plans. For example, if you type in an address on the in-car navigation system, the car connects to the Web over 3G and shows you a Google Earth rendering for that destination, including buildings, roadways and other points of interest.

The A8 also uses the photo-sharing site Panoramio to help you plan a travel route. For example, if you’re planning a trip to San Francisco, you’ll see Panoramio thumbnails of, say, the Golden Gate Bridge on the in-car nav screen. You can then tap on the touchscreen on a thumbnail for a full-screen view. The service works by encoding images with geolocation data; the A8 feeds the encoded images to your local navigation system.

New connectivity scenarios

In-car wireless connections will open up a world of opportunity, says K. Venkatesh Prasad, the group and technical leader of Infotronics Research and Advanced Engineering at Ford. For example, you might hear a recipe on the radio in your car, speak a few commands to look up the recipe on the Internet, and transmit the Web page to your own email address so that it’s waiting for you on your PC when you get home.

This type of app might initially run on a smartphone, Prasad explains, but eventually cloud-based applications will run on your car in the same way they do on your computer or your smartphone today, as demonstrated by the recently unveiled Ford Evos concept car. The information that appears on the car’s touchscreen is gathered and processed remotely by cloud apps.

A cloud app might, for example, connect to a local grocer with instructions about what items you need to make that recipe you’ve just saved, how to package them, and even when you’re likely to arrive at the store to pick them up based on your current location. And when you do pick up your groceries, an e-wallet app could communicate your payment info to the grocer — all with minimal input from you.

Just as years ago Amazon tweaked the book-buying experience to work online, giving e-commerce a tremendous kick-start, Prasad says, cloud-based apps need to be tuned for driving. Apps that are customized for hands-free driving, for example, could reduce distraction issues while helping people remain productive while they’re on the road. “We need to get the Internet tuned to road speed,” he adds.

OnStar, General Motors’ in-car telematics unit, is also developing some interesting car-connection options. Many GM cars are equipped with OnStar’s Stolen Vehicle Slowdown technology, which gives law enforcement officers the ability to remotely stop a vehicle that’s been reported stolen. The police send the vehicle information number (VIN) to OnStar, which then sends a wireless signal to the car that causes the accelerator to stop working. (The steering, brakes and electronics in the car continue to work.)

A future scenario could involve taking control of a stolen car’s steering to guide it to the side of the road, says Nick Pudar, a business development vice president at OnStar.

The companies are also working on giving GM owners remote access to the car’s data, Pudar says. You might use your computer or smartphone to look up your miles-per-gallon rating over specific routes over a period of time, and perhaps adjust your plans for maximum MPG. OnStar might also suggest traffic routes based on your driving habits. (OnStar’s data tracking has, however, raised some privacy concerns.)

Some information about routes, MPG and traffic is already available to Chevy Volt drivers through the MyVolt.com portal. You can also connect to electric cars such as the Chevy Volt and the Nissan Leaf via a smartphone app even when you are nowhere near the vehicle.

For example, with the Nissan Carwings system, you can tap in remotely to check on the state of the battery charge or even “recondition” the car to set the temperature level. Toyota has plans for similar apps for its upcoming electric cars and plug-in hybrids.

These innovations will pave the way for even more remote access, such as the ability to have your car plan a travel route before you even slide into the driver’s seat, says AutoPacific’s Peterson.

Connecting to other cars

The next major leap will come when cars can communicate directly with one another. Initially, most car-to-car communication technologies will be aimed at curbing the number of accidents and resulting injuries and deaths in cars, according to Paul Laurenza, managing partner in the Washington office of the law firm Dykema, who works indirectly with the Department of Transportation (through other agencies) on automotive legal issues. The DOT estimates that more than 80% of crashes could be prevented by using vehicle-to-vehicle safety measures, he says.’

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For example, a vehicle might sense an icy road, then transmit that information to other cars nearby. Or a car whose driver is attempting to pass a truck could get a signal from an approaching car that’s over a hill or around a curve, and move back behind the truck until it’s safe to pass.

In another scenario, a vehicle about to sideswipe another car could communicate with the car in its path, using a complex algorithm that accounts for speed, proximity and even the percentage chance for collision. The cars would then adjust automatically to prevent a crash — one car could swerve while the other one slows down, or both cars could swerve at the same time — communicating all the while so each car knows what the other is doing.

A similar technology that’s already in place in cars like the BMW 5 Series is designed to prepare the brakes for fast stopping and to enhance traction control and stability, says AutoPacific’s Peterson, but it is based on sensors in the car, not a connection to other cars. The next step is to get cars with such sensors to transmit the data to each other — something BMW, Daimler and other carmakers are beginning to test in Europe.

In the U.S., these car-to-car safety signals will depend on the emerging DSRC standard, a dedicated wireless spectrum that runs in the 5.9GHz band and is closed off from the Internet. Peterson says the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) is pushing automakers to equip future vehicles with transponders that use DSRC to communicate their current status and road conditions to other cars.

The NHTSA is beginning to work with automotive component makers such as Delphi andJohnson Controls to encourage the development of such transponders, according to Peterson. However, he notes that the task is made more difficult by the fact that the various wireless standards for DSRC are still under development by auto manufacturers working with federal and state government agencies.

Phil Ames, a senior staff engineer at Intel who works on embedded wireless communications, envisions a future in which car and infrastructure sensors track and communicate everything that’s going on, including whether the driver is paying attention. So, for instance, a road sign might send out a wireless signal warning about the prevalence of deer in the area. The car’s sensors would receive the signal and go on high alert for a deer jumping out in front of the car, simultaneously preparing the car for sudden braking and audibly warning the driver of the danger.

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But car-to-infrastructure communications won’t necessarily stop with roadside signs and sensors. In the next few years, cars will be capable of connecting in a much more robust way to their surroundings, including local businesses. Ford’s Prasad calls this the “last inch” problem, which has to do with the location-based information fed to a driver and how that information is displayed. It’s one thing to have the wireless connections available, but it’s another to use the connections to make driving easier and more worthwhile.

“It is not so much about wireless in the car but how cars are part of the broader physical infrastructure,” says Prasad. “The infrastructure looks at who is coming to town and what services could be offered. The car will look for restaurants, places to room for the night, or a movie theater.”

Volvo’s Gustavsson says the company is working with mobile telecommunications vendor Ericsson on a possible scenario where cars can transmit diagnostic data and other information about a vehicle’s health to service stations in certain urban areas. The idea is that you would pay a monthly fee to a repair shop or gas station to constantly monitor your vehicle. You would get notices about real-time service needs or even, say, an alert that you should buy gas now because the next station is too far away.

Some of these features are already available. OnStar, for example, can monitor your vehicle and let you know that you need an oil change or that your tires are wearing down. A similar service,Mercedes mbrace, also provides real-time remote monitoring and can even send a tow truck if you’re stalled at the side of the road. What Gustavsson is describing is more localized: the local repair shop monitoring your vehicle within a specified range.

Safety and integration challenges

The connected car will open up new money-making opportunities for car makers and their partners — including developers of in-car apps and makers of dashboard interface systems, as well as hotels, gas stations and other businesses that cater to travelers. Even the new safety features will boost revenues from car sales, since drivers will pay extra for vehicles that protect them from crashes. Peterson notes that according to AutoPacific’s driver surveys, roughly one-third of people who buy Ford cars today do so because of the technical features such as Internet connectivity.

However, as with any wireless connection, there are also concerns about connected car safety and security. Researchers have proven that Bluetooth, cellular networks and other entry points into your car’s systems are vulnerable to determined hackers. There’s also the more basic problem of distracted driving — as drivers deal with more and more onscreen data and feeds, will they be less aware of, and slower to respond to, what’s happening outside their cars?

According to the NHTSA, 20% of the 1.5 million crashes that resulted in injury in the U.S. in 2009 involved reports of distracted driving, which the government defines as “any nondriving activity a person engages in that has the potential to distract him or her from the primary task of driving and increase the risk of crashing.” In addition to taking your eyes off the road or hands off the wheel, this includes “taking your mind off what you’re doing.” Not surprisingly, U.S. Secretary of Transportation Ray LaHood has spoken out against infotainment devices in cars, saying they contribute to distracted driving.

Another hurdle is integration. Any IT professional who has deployed a complex ERP system or has tried to link communications tools from different vendors knows that integration is one of computing’s greatest challenges. When the computer has four wheels and speeds along at 70 mph, the challenges are even greater.

So how will car companies integrate all of the technologies inside a car and then make sure they connect to systems in other cars and along the roadways? And how will they do that in a way that keeps drivers and other vehicles safe? “That question is way above my pay grade,” jokes Peterson. “There are very smart engineers working on this, and they decide what is possible and what they can’t even allow at higher speeds.”

The Department of Transportation makes suggestions about the safety of in-car IT systems, but manufacturers aren’t required to follow them, according to Ford’s Hall. Nevertheless, it is in the automakers’ best interests to prevent distracted-driving accidents. In addition to carefully vetting the apps it allows to run in its vehicles, “Ford takes proactive steps to limit distractions while driving, including locking our visual content such as sports scores, as well as limiting navigation destination entry to just voice — no typing on the screen,” says Hall.

But having manufacturers police themselves on safety has sometimes led to problems. Peterson cites BMW’s early-2000s iDrive system for controlling the car’s climate, audio, navigation and more as an example of too-complicated technology that drew drivers’ attention away from the road. “Designed by engineers for engineers, the system was practically impossible to decipher,” he says, adding that it’s up to manufacturers and designers to “clearly understand what the distractions are and make sure their vehicles minimize the distraction. The key is ease of use.”

As for data security and integration, the DSRC network is being designed with both issues in mind. The DOT’s plan is to have all vehicle-to-vehicle and vehicle-to-infrastructure communications transmitted over the closed network, which will keep cars’ data sequestered from the Internet and provide a single communications platform for car makers to work with. According to attorney Laurenza, recent DOT policy papers point to a DSRC certification process for all sensors and wireless connections in a car.

However, the DSRC network is still a work in progress. Part of the challenge, according to Peterson, is getting all of the car companies to agree on standard protocols, not to mention exactly what to communicate over the network. No car companies have yet announced vehicles that will work with DSRC, but they say they’re making progress.

“We are actively developing the technology and working with our government and automaker partners globally to help deliver it as quickly and affordably possible,” says Ford spokesperson Wes Sherwood.

GM is taking a somewhat different approach. Rather than building the technology into the car itself, the company is developing portable devices and smartphone apps that make use of DSRC. The company, which recently demonstrated such a device, says this approach will make DSRC communications available to a greater range of drivers.

But the integration woes don’t end with the communications network. Another headache has to do with protecting proprietary information, such as the data gathered by a car’s sensors. As Volvo’s Gustavsson notes, it’s one thing to work with a third party when it comes to interactive maps or streaming Twitter feeds, but something else entirely when a partner’s app taps into, say, the actual brake sensor on a car.

Due to companies’ concerns about protecting trade secrets, it’s likely that the automakers themselves will develop the various endpoint systems and related encryption to make sure no one can steal sensor data, Gustavsson says.

That might make integration more difficult, but, as VW’s Lee explains, we’re talking about a car with very complex internal systems moving at highway speeds, so any outside