Pub. 4 2015-2016 Issue 3

24 San Diego Dealer D o you ever get nostalgic for childhood family road trips? Maybe they started like this: Dad would pack the family into the Ford Crown Victoria station wagon and load it with everything you’d need for a weeks-long journey, including a large case of cassette tapes. Being a safe and cautious driver, he wouldn’t distract himself by looking through the cassettes in traffic. He would wait to insert one only when the family was well out of the city and on the highway. Finally, he’d relax to Ol’ Blue Eyes and turn on the cruise control. For decades, that’s how dad and everybody else might have defined “autonomous vehicles,” if they were familiar with the concept. While self-driving cars are still years away, in 2016, the automotive and other industries are redefining our relationship with vehicles in ways that are making a connected and autonomous car future a reality – and will make road trips and commutes unrecognizable. In the coming years, they will change howwe interact with our vehicles, enable vehicles to communicate with electronic items outside the car as well as government, and help to automate everything from parking to registering your car. For many of these innovative companies, this future is already here. If BMW has its way, before you step out your front door for your road adventure of a lifetime, you’ll walk past its“connectedmirror,”showcased at the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in January in Las Vegas. Appearing much like a mirror you might place in your entryway – except incredibly intelligent – BMW’s concept product displays your daily schedule, the charging status of your electric vehicle and the most efficient route to your destination. Additionally, it signals your car to automatically exit the garage – as well as re-park itself – with the placement of your car remote in the cubbyhole at the bottom of the mirror. Delphi is giving us a glimpse of what future family road trips might be like when you finally step into your waiting vehicle. At CES, the auto technology company touted its successful nine-day San Francisco to New York City autonomous drive in an Audi SQ5 SUV last year. Using a range of sensors, a group of engineers navigated tunnels, construction zones, traffic circles and bridges to make a virtually driverless 3,400 mile cross-country journey that, it said, was 99 percent automated and gathered research critical to making autonomous vehicles mainstream. Radar and lidar, among other technologies, are making automated driving possible. Standing for light detection and ranging, lidar uses lasers to measure distances and detect objects. It provides a car with a 360 degree image of its surroundings, including other cars, people and animals, enabling it to respond appropriately. As part of Advanced Driver Assistance Systems (ADAS), cameras, lane departure warnings and traffic sign recognition are already helping cautious drivers be even safer. Unlike dad’s Crown Vic, the vehicles of today and the future will keep you increasingly informed of your journey ahead. Mapping company HERE, whose software is already used by 90 percent of car navigation systems, has been working with automakers to seamlessly integrate mapping information into the dashboard of your car, to plan your route, help you find parking and inform you of howmany miles you can travel before you need to get gas, among other things. By syncing your smart phone with your vehicle, you won’t be dangerously (and perhaps illegally) distracted by a mobile device – or like dad, have to ask mom to unfold maps – to find a rest stop. While you’re on the road, increased connectivity capabilities between your car and other electronic devices are making it possible to keep an eye on home. By integrating your smart phone with your car, Volkswagen is connecting its vehicles with the home. Using a platform compatible with LG devices and appliances, Volkswagen envisions a future in which you’ll be able to access your porch camera to talk to the deliveryman, unlock your front door and control household appliances from your car. If there’s a prowler on your porch, you’ll know. As you finally approach home after weeks on the road, Volkswagen predicts you’ll be able to activate your home climate control remotely so it’s cool when you walk inside from the summer heat. What you won’t arrive home to, however, are a mound of mail and worries that you haven’t paid your parking ticket in Albuquerque or renewed your vehicle registration on time. That’s because the electronic vehicle registration (EVR) industry is advancing and collaborating with the automotive and dealership industries to create an all-round seamless driving experience, which includes automating these types of transactions and more. MVSC, which helped shift California’s paper-based registration system largely online, is nowworking to introduce EVR in an increasing number of states, which would streamline the car-buying process for dealerships and drivers across the United States. The introduction of its new Vitu EVR platform is expected to result in quicker registration, titling and license plate delivery, with virtually no paperwork. But with an eye firmly on greater car connectivity, MVSC is also evolving and expanding to automate and enable vehicle-to-government (V2Gov) transactions. That includes laying the foundations for automatically resolving transactions like your parking ticket, your registration renewal, toll payments, traffic fines and beyond. Automation is upending all aspects of the automotive industry, and connecting your vehicle in previously unimaginable ways. If you’re ready for the ride, prepare for a journey that will put common driver concerns in the rearview mirror, which itself may become as fond a memory as dad’s Crown Vic. Randall Mah is themarketingmanager at MVSC, the innovative technology company behind DMVdesk, the electronic vehicle registration provider of more than half of California new car dealerships. An Automated Automotive Future Is Just Around the Corner New technology is reshaping how we drive—or even if we drive. By Randall Mah