A modern car can have as many as 200 on-board sensors, measuring everything
from tyre pressure to windscreen temperature. A high-end Lexus contains 67
microprocessors, and even the world’s cheapest car, the Tata Nano, has a dozen.
Voice-driven satellite navigation is routinely used by millions of people.
Radar-equipped cruise control allows vehicles to adjust their speed
automatically in traffic. Some cars can even park themselves.
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Once a purely mechanical device, the car is going digital. “Connected cars”,
which sport links to navigation satellites and communications networks—and,
before long, directly to other vehicles—could transform driving, preventing
motorists from getting lost, stuck in traffic or involved in accidents. And
connectivity can improve entertainment and productivity for both driver and
passengers—an attractive proposition given that Americans, for example, spend 45
hours a month in their cars on average. There is also scope for new business
models built around connected cars, from dynamic insurance and road pricing to
car pooling and location-based advertising. “We can stop looking at a car as one
system,” says Rahul Mangharam, an engineer at the University of Pennsylvania,
“and look at it as a node in a network.”
