The breakthrough is coming: understand the (near) future of cars.
Vehicles will become increasingly autonomous and will have the mission not only of transportation, but also of ensuring user safety.
From Infomoney Nowadays, you only use your car for commuting, right? That's still the main purpose of a car, but with technological advancements, cars have started to receive accessories to increase the comfort of drivers and passengers, as well as to make driving easier.
The technologies are varied: evolution of wireless communication technologies, GPS, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, cameras, among others. "Viewed in isolation and without proper integration, all this evolution can lead us to technological chaos in the area of mobility and the automotive industry. Now more than ever, we must consider the need to turn our attention to mobility and the technologies linked to it, to ensure the continued growth of the industry," explains Flavio Sakai, marketing and sales director at Harman.
In fact, vehicles are ceasing to be merely objects on wheels as they become connected to the outside world via the driver's smartphone, meaning that up-to-date traffic information arrives faster, for example. "The use of this information and data-rich maps will allow for a reduction in travel time, fuel waste, and pollutant emission levels," he states.
In a few years
The director believes that in the future, vehicles will exchange information with each other and with the external environment. High-precision maps and sensors, such as radars, infrared systems, and cameras, will allow users to coexist with the apparent increase in technological complexity within the vehicle, since it will become increasingly autonomous and its mission will be not only to move the vehicle but also to guarantee the user's safety.
"The cars will be able to 'make decisions' such as 'making way' in a synchronized, orderly manner for an emergency medical vehicle, recognizing it automatically not by the siren but by electronic identification."
However, all this progress raises questions such as "can a car connected to the internet be subject to hacker attacks?" and "what if there is a failure in the vehicle's connection system?". Although the future is not far off, the automotive sector still has much research to do to ensure the safety of the people who will live with smart cars.