To improve today’s voice-recognition
systems, carmakers are collaborating with smartphone makers to literally
reach for the clouds. The connected car of tomorrow will exploit cloud
computing, plus the vast menu of IT tools, apps, and updates raining
down on the mobile-communication world to stream your home music
collection into your car or remind you to grab a quart of milk. One of
the handiest cockpit advancements connects an Escort radar and laser
detector to an iPhone by means of a SmartCord Live cable. Thus paired,
your smartphone is capable of displaying not only traffic, speed-limit,
and speed-trap-location information but also any live alert reported by
another Escort user in the area running the EscortLive app. This
networking could be the most effective police countermeasure since the
CB radio.
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| New Batteries |
Imagine a $30,000 Chevy Volt with a roomy back seat or a Nissan Leaf
with a 250-mile range. Success of the electric-car movement hinges on
the arrival of better batteries. Two enterprises racing to
commercialize advanced solid-state battery technology—Sakti3 and Planar
Energy—hope to multiply lithium-ion energy density by a factor of two
to three while halving cost. Their plans are to replace today’s liquid
electrolytes with lithium superionic conductors called thio-LISICONs
(solid ceramic material containing lithium, sulfur, germanium, and
phosphorous) to save bulk and weight. Automated manufacturing processes
will trim cost, while the likelihood of a chemical meltdown caused by
improper charging or collision damage should be reduced significantly.
GM, a Sakti3 stakeholder, hopes solid-state batteries will be ready for
road-testing within five years.
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