Chip tuning has begun catching on for other areas of automotive performance. Transmission chips or "trannies" modify automatic transmission shift points for quicker, more responsive acceleration -- at the cost of lower gas mileage and more wear-and-tear. No doubt more ways to chip-tune your car will catch on as carmakers rely more on chips to control other aspects of automotive performance like steering, suspension and braking.
Intelligent Driver Assist
The adaptive cruise controls once offered only on luxury models are now migrating downmarket.
The era of intelligent driver assist began in 1998 when Mercedes-Benz introduced adaptive cruise control to its S-class luxury sedans. The idea was to use radar monitoring and signal processing to let a driver automatically maintain a constant distance from the car in front in addition to the dangerously simple-minded setting of a constant speed. BMW, Volvo and other luxury makes have followed with similar systems. Volvo's lets the driver set, in addition to a maximum speed, a time interval of one to three seconds to the car ahead.
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Of course even that's not enough to let you snooze at the wheel on the freeway without setting yourself up for a violent awakening or worse. Volvo's BLIS (Blind Spot Information System), announced at the 2004 Detroit Auto Show for debut in 2004 (2005 models), takes another big step toward comprehensively intelligent driving systems. Digital cameras located in each door mirror feed a stream of images for the BLIS processor to compare. When changes indicate cars entering the monitored zones,the driver is alerted. This capability to prevent lateral intrusion into danger zones can be used, with relatively minor adjustments, to detect, warn and even automatically prevent unintended or dangerous drift out of the lane of travel.
Another major advance in intelligent driver assist systems is in late stages of development at Volvo -- an automatic brake activation system that decides the correct amount of braking pressure needed to prevent a collision and gently overrides incorrect braking pressure by the driver. If it detects no driver reaction, it brakes automatically in time to avoid collision or, failing that, to minimize the force of impact.
These processor-controlled driver-assist devices start their product cycles on top-of-the-line models of luxury makes that can absorb their R&D cost, then filter down to mass-market models. Within a decade we can expect them to become integrated with GPS navigation systems to serve as comprehensive intelligent driving systems that can take over for bad, drowsy or simply lazy drivers.
Dual-Mode Sport Utility Vehicles/Trucks
Volvo's XC90 SUV offers a versatile configuration of seats that fold down flat for maximum cargo capacity.
Thesis. Antithesis. Synthesis.
Two decades ago the humble pickup excited young carbuyers by recapturing the rough-and-ready mindset that had once made cars fun. A decade later sport utility vehicles came along to tame the wild west with enough seating for the kids, walnut burl and audiophile sound systems. Now we're seeing what happens when you put the peanut butter together with the chocolate: sport utility trucks that lets you go from civilized to mud-loving at the flip of a switch.
The innovation that cleared the versatility trail was the split, fold-down seats. The Volvo XC90 ute takes its possibilities to the logical limit with not only a 40/20/40 rear seat that folds flat, but a front passenger seat that folds flat as well for those long loads you don't want to strap to the luggage rack.
Then came the cunning midgate that lets you fold down the back half of a ute into a pickup-style flatbed. Within two years the trend moved upmarket from the Chevy Avalanche and the Ford Explorer Sport Trac to the Lincoln Blackwood and the Cadillac Escalade.
At last even those who are uneasy about having a collapsible roof on their SUV can tote tall with the power-sliding rear roof. To make the most of that feature, the GMC Envoy XUV also comes with a drop or swing tailgate and its so-called Next-Generation Midgate.
SUV's with Car-Height Bumpers
SUV designers must incorporate bumpers that don't ride over those of passenger cars.
At last, a functional reason for a radical front-end redesign for sport utilities: the mayhem wrought on a car's passenger compartment and its occupants when its bumper is overridden by a five-thousand pound SUV. This is one problem that litigation-wary carmakers are addressing head-on on a "voluntary" basis. There's no getting around the solution: double-height bumpers that see eye-to-eye with both cars and trucks. The results don't have to be ugly, as evidenced by Infiniti's forward-looking moster ute, the FX56. Look for the long-toothed look to spread fast as everyone scrambles to avoid becoming the new millennium's Pinto.
