Wireless Internet-based services are transforming the auto world, empowering us to access relevant information, stream entertainment, and travel safer.
You’re cruising east on Interstate 80 early on a Friday afternoon, getting a head start on a weekend in Tahoe. You come up behind a slow moving semi, make a quick check in your side view mirror and start to pull into the left lane to pass, unaware of the Lexus that’s just roared into your blind spot at 85 m.p.h.
Yet you don’t become a highway statistic because vehicle-to-vehicle communications sent you a warning that your mirror couldn’t. The moment you nudged the steering wheel left, digital intelligence embedded in your car sent you an urgent warning not to change lanes or even applied the brakes automatically to avoid a collision.
Or suppose you’re driving through Napa Valley on a lazy Sunday and want to find a family friendly place to stop for dinner. With just a simple voice command, your wirelessly connected car pulls up Yelp on the dashboard, with recommendations and directions at the ready.
And if you’re driving one of the new electric vehicles (EV), the navigation system directs you for a ‘refill’ to a network of charging stations NRG Energy is deploying across California. These fast-charge stations will operate like a mobile network to provide complete coverage in several regions of the state.
Helping drivers avoid collisions and keep both hands on the wheel and eyes on the road is just one of the many benefits of mobile technology. These are not vaporware automotive scenarios but rather technology that exists right now and will become common in cars over the next few years.
As California leads the tech industry and consumers continue to have an insatiable appetite for the latest technology, the auto industry is veering quickly toward mobile innovation. In the near future, the deciding factor in choosing a new car could fast become wireless connectivity and what it offers.
It’s significant that the rise in smart car features has coincided with the opening of Silicon Valley R&D centers by all the major U.S. car manufacturers – Ford just opened theirs last month. The auto industry joins health care, education and energy providers who have set up shop here to take advantage of the digital revolution and the abundance of tech talent. While change doesn’t happen as quickly in the auto industry as it does in the Valley, smart car technology is accelerating.
In the mobile world, consumer demand for Internet connectivity and smartphones is skyrocketing and consumers are able to do more than ever on wireless connections— from operating home appliances to remote monitoring of health, to taking distance education courses—opportunities that further increase wireless demand. The U.S. government has estimated a 35-fold increase in U.S. mobile data traffic from 2009 to 2014 and experts forecast worldwide data traffic to multiply seven times in the next three years. So it’s not surprising that demand for mobile connectivity and the smartphone is leading us right to the smart car, which will add to the growing strain on our wireless networks.
There’s much more technology in the on-deck circle, but the future of "smart" cars – like smartphones, homes, grids, and mobile medical devices – depend on smart government. There are many things government can do to promote a flourishing Internet ecosystem, everything from allocating more spectrum (the airwaves that act like highway lanes in the sky transporting mobile data between devices) for consumer use, to modernizing regulations that would create incentives for the substantial private sector investment needed to transition to IP-based networks.
After all, it is consumer demand that has driven innovations like the smart car, and to satisfy that ever-growing demand in the future, it is imperative that we foster a policy environment that keeps mobile in the fast lane.
