• by Montgomery Miller
•  December 15th, 2020

Tech Advances to Keep an Eye On

As we’ve all noticed, automotive tech innovations just keep coming at a faster pace than ever before. Vehicles that talk to us, drive for us, tell us when we’re out of our lane or getting too close…clearly, the future predicted by science fiction writers decades ago, has arrived.

Referring back to Moore's Law, the doubling of computer processing speed every 18 months is just one manifestation of the greater trend that all technological change occurs at an exponential rate. The coming new year brings us yet more tech offering safer, more reliable ways to communicate hands free; improved autonomous breaking, steering and self-driving systems along with vastly improved range for electric vehicles; new battery tech for better storage; advanced interior comfort options, and beyond. 

Increased Use of Sensors
A key area of tech advancement in the automotive sector is the development and use of more sensors. According to a July 2020 article published by MarketsandMarkets.com, “The need for increasing passenger safety and comfort, reducing emission levels, and enhancing engine performance and efficiency are expected to boost the use of automotive sensors. Position and speed sensors are the major sensors due to their rising adoption especially in powertrain, safety & control, and body electronics applications.”

What this means is that the actions you take in the driver’s seat are being monitored more closely and the way these sensors are communicating with the vehicle are rapidly improving to make these driver actions safer and more reliable. There will soon come a time when lane change collisions, rear-end collisions, backing up collisions, excessive speed collisions and collisions related to distracted driving, will be a thing of the past. We’re not quite there yet, but the writing is on the wall and auto manufacturers are competing to get there first.

According to an October 2020 report from cashcarbuyer.com, “Up to this time, each vehicle has around 60 to 100 sensors on board and we can safely assume that these figures will increase as cars get smarter. As a matter of fact, a recent report says the number of sensors is expected to reach as many as 200 per vehicle in line with current trends.”

Hands-Free and Loving it…Finally
Manufacturers are still grappling with how to make their Bluetooth pairing easier for the consumer and, although they’ve made progress, the fact that they still need to provide instructions at all is a good indicator they’re not there yet. As a result there are a number of Bluetooth adapters available to make pairing easier for the consumer.

This month, www.iverse.com reviewed their top five Bluetooth adapters including the Nulaxy Bluetooth adapter with more than 40,000 reviews and a 4.4-star overall rating, due to it's reliability, ease of use, and several popular features. At under $20, it's also a very affordable solution. You’ll find their other recommendations here.

Perfect Parking
There’s always that one person who can parallel park in a couple of quick moves and make it look easy. Others, well, not so much. Austin, being one of the fastest growing cities in the country offers jobs, prosperity, increased traffic and fewer parking spaces. Although these growth related issues won’t be going away anytime soon, manufacturers like BMW, Audi, Tesla, Jaguar, Ford and Volvo have introduced self-parking technology to assist drivers with safely parking. In some cases, manufacturers are partnering with smartphone apps for assistance with locating, reserving and paying for parking in hundreds of cities in both the US and Canada. Some apps will locate available parking, on and off the street, as well as for special events and at airports.

Heading into 2021 and the decade beyond, you will see significant improvements in voice activated connectivity; voice, fingerprint and facial recognition based security systems; introduction of many new of all-electric models from multiple manufacturers; dramatically improved battery longevity, mileage-per-charge and big breakthroughs in rapid charging systems. For more on the cool tech coming in 2021, check out KBB.com’s 10 Best Automotive Technologies of 2021 here.