The modern day cars are very different from the old
time cars. The research in the automobile industry has brought about a lot of
changes in the design of a modern car. New systems and modern gadgets have
enhanced the comfort and safety levels of the modern vehicles. In olden days
the driver used to control the vehicle with his common sense. The technology
has advanced so much that nowadays the driver is just a supervisor watching the
machine.
Comfort
enhancements
The automobile technology has developed so much
nowadays that there are a lot of new features to improve the comfort of the
passengers. For example a few years ago there were no automatic wipers,
adjustable head lights, power windows or electrically adjustable ORVMs. The air
conditioning systems, infotainment systems, reverse parking assistance,
Bluetooth connectivity; GPS navigation system, night vision mirrors and the cruise
control are some of the recently developed features.
Automation in
vehicles
The new inventions especially in the electronic and
hydraulic fields have great impacts in the automobile industry. The automatic
transmission is one important technology developed as early as in 1930s. Most
of the cars of the future will have some sort of automatic transmission like
the torque convertor, Continuous Variable Torque (CVT) technology and the
popular AMT system. Electronic controls will play important roles in the future.
Safety enhancements
Safety of a car has improved a lot because of the
new technologies adopted. An air bag which gives a cushioning effect to the
passengers has been used since 1941. The modern air bag has been introduced
first by Mercedes Benz in automobileplanet.com1981 in Germany. Many more safety
features like the Anti-lock Brake System, the Brake Assist, the Electronic
Brake Force Distribution and the engine immobiliser are quite common in the
latest cars.
Modern engines
The researches in the automobile engineering have
helped in making fuel efficient engines using technologies like Turbo-charging,
Variable Valve Timing, Electronic Injection and multi-jet injection. Hybrid
cars and cars running on alternate fuel are the vehicles of the future.
Add-on gadgets
The advancements in the electronic fields have
resulted in the development of gadgets which can be fitted later in any models
to improve the comfort and safety levels. The voice recognition system, reverse
parking cameras, portable GPS systems, mobile phone assisted navigation and
parking and plug-in music systems are some such systems which can be added
using gadgets.
Driverless cars
The automobile technology has developed so much
that the future vehicles will be driverless. All the functions a driver is
supposed to do will be done by RADARs, LASERs and cameras with the help of
electronic controls. Leading information technology companies like Google and
the Apple are the pioneers in this field.
