Cars - User Wishes

The car industry releases new models on a regular basis. Usually, every 5 years for American and European manufactures and every 3 years for Japanese and Korean manufactures. The new models are more of styling rather then technology. We are still using the same gas engine, where only recently electric (Hybrid) cars emerged. Electronics and computers are used, but at a very conservative manner. When looking at a brochure of a new car, the marketing is mostly based on the styling and some fashion oriented items: Safety, fuel efficiency, internal seat layout to name a few.
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From a user point of view, there are many items to consider. Some of them are small afterthoughts while others are more meaningful. The items in the next list are based on technologies and capabilities available today. Some of them were already used in some form.
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1. Visibility
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When designing a new car today, two major factors are used: The car floor (Which handle the engine and the wheels) and a styled box built on this floor. The style should be eye catching and actually should drive the customer to be in love with the car (and buying it, of course). The modern car styling involves sometimes high windows line, large roof pillars that slope to the front and the rear ends. The result are dead sections, where the driver can not see anything. The highly popular minivan styling concept is the worse of them. The front pillars are slopping to the engine's front, blocking the side view which is essential when making a turn. Car users are asking car manufactures to design the car around the driver (and the passengers). The styling should be limited to not degrading the driver visibility. Practically, it will be difficult to change styling trends. Also, the pillars should be large enough from a safety considerations. The solution may use corner mounted cameras to improve the visibility. A warning system may also be used to trigger a real time warning signal in case some object is existing in the dead zones.
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2. Protection
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Modern cars scarifies the car protection for a better looks. Years ago, cars had bumpers and some kind of rubber protection strips along their sides. Not saying that modern cars are suffers from any safety issue, they are more vulnerable to everyday impacts. Bumpers evolved to huge, front and rear car parts. Low speed collisions (Even while parking), with higher impact then the bumper flexibility, may cause a deformation. Sometimes a complete bumper replacement is necessary - a large investments. Bumpers should be splitted to smaller parts. This way, a replacement when needed, will be much economical. Same for the rubber strips - Drivers want them: Lowering the scratches on the car is more important then the car streaming styling.
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3. Suspension
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Ride quality is a direct product of the car suspension. Car stability is also deeply effected by the suspension design. Here are two requirements which can not handled by a single design. Softer suspensions will contribute to higher comfortably, while harder suspension will better handle car's roll during turning. Modern European and Japanese cars are favoring the sports attitude to deliver a car which can ride faster on turning. We get harder suspension which makes regular driver life's tougher. The suspension design should use active (dynamic) controllers (Today's suspension is passive). A computer should control the suspension hardness according to the road quality and the driving style. For example, setting a softer suspension for low speed driving and make the suspension tougher on higher speeds, especially during turns.
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4. Traffic management
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Turning the engine on, each driver is by his/her own. Going from one location the other is involving decision making - the route. We are making a decision without any information available. To have a route based on traffic loading and optimal path, getting real time updates while driving, Two already available technologies may be used: GPS and cellular communication. The car location can be transmitted continuously. A central management will process the car's desired route (and destination), analyzing environment factors as loading, street profile and possible known disturbances (A football match). The outcome, per car instructions, will be transmitted to the car and will used as guidance information. This method is better the current GPS navigation which, usually, does not having such options.
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5. Events handling
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Car events are handled today on a partial basis. ABS and ESP system are translating car's status into actions. Others are displayed as warnings - The handling is up to the driver's skills. It is more as a separate systems, each doing its own function. A central car management system is desired. Each system will be linked to it, sharing real time events and, if needed, get instructions. It will function more as a PC working with its peripheral devices. For example, a sudden drop in the air pressure in one of the car's wheels will be a managed event: The manager will activate a process instructing the engine, brakes, steering wheel to process a safely stopping. A communication protocol (real time protocol) is desired and the car's components should interface with.
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6. User interface
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Today's car user interface is based on old concepts - Mechanical fixed dials with small LCD screens for additional info. Not going here to suggest a replacement for the steering wheel (A joystick ?!?), but, we can do better for presenting the information. The essential information, as the car's speed, should be displayed on the front glass. The driver will not have to pull his/her sight from the road. In place of the mechanical dials, LCD screen should be used. The driver can used a personal style to have the information. Some information is not needed all the time, so, screens can be exchanged according to the information needed. For example, MB S-Class is using LCD monitor. During night driving the gauges are moving aside to free space to the night vision system's display.
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7. Maintenance
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The car's major components to be maintained should be located for easy reach. Looking at the engine's bay today, it seems they are located where spare space was left. Computerized diagnostic systems may report the car status immediately upon entering service, or even create a service call automatically. It will make car be on the same maintenance level no matter the driver knowledge or the sensitivity to abnormal car behaviour.
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8. Engines
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The engines used today show nothing new from past 100 years. True, we have computers managing the engine and even having hybrid cars, using gas and electrical engine combination. We can do better. The target is reducing travel cost and pollution. Electrical engines used today as boosters. The main engine is still the gas engine. The desired solution should use electrical motors as the prime motors. They will be using batteries charged by household power (In addition to the braking energy). The gas engine will be used as emergency power generator - To be operated only when the batteries are fully discharged. It will charge the batteries and will not have any direct connection with the wheels. This solution is well suited to urban driving.
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9. Layout
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Cars, after all, accommodate their passengers. They are sitting between the front and the rear wheels, facing forward. Not going to suggest any major change with this concept. However, the passengers space may be enlarged to provide better internal space. The wheels should be positioned at the car's corners. This concept is already used in small cars. Going to larger ones, the wheels are pushed inside and the bumpers create large overhangs, front and rear. Designing cars this way, we will get larger inside with same, or even, smaller, external dimensions.
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10. Safety
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Nothing to add here - The effort should continue. We may be on track with mechanical safety. This is a passive act that handle the actual collision. Active devices, to achieve minimal space between cars, obstacle avoidance and others should be a standard. It will contribute to prevent sure collision situations.
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11. Car management
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Car management is fully controlled today by the driver - Using (or limited by) the options provided by the car manufacture. For example, we are limited to the stability and ride quality set by the suspension designer. The car management should be partially transferred to the car's computer. The driver should set the driving profile - City, highway, traffic jam, parking and so on. The car management will adjust the gear ratios, suspension style, steering wheel sensitivity, engine utilization and others. The outcome: A car which behaves optimally to the driving conditions. Note - Some additional systems should be added to the car to have such capabilities.