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Hottest Cars and Automotive Tech From CES 2016
Consumer Reports is in Las Vegas covering CES 2016, the big consumer electronics show. Our experts are reporting on the latest cars and auto technology, complete with videos.
Get the latest car news and show coverage by following us on Twitter @CRCars.
BMW i Vision Future has 3D Air Touch Gesture Control, Touch-Sensitive Surfaces
BMW rolled out the i Vision Future Interaction concept vehicle to demonstrate its view on the future of the networked vehicle cockpit. Building on the gesture control found in the 2016 BMW 7 Series, which was first shown last year at CES, the i Vision employs high-resolution displays that interact with the driver in a variety of ways.
Air Touch is a system that uses sensors to recognize hand movements on multiple planes, so that the gestures are similar to using a touch screen without any physical interaction with the screen surface. Information is communicated to the driver through three screens: a head-up display, a three-dimensional instrument cluster, and a 21-inch panoramic display. The Air Touch system works for both the driver and passenger.
BMW also showed systems designed to compensate for reduced visibility in its highly stylized i8 supercar. The i8 Mirrorless uses three cameras that replace the rearview mirror, covering larger areas in an effort to eliminate blind spots. The images are stitched together on a single display. The i3 Extended Rearview Mirror takes the image from a roof-mounted camera and overlays it on the interior rearview mirror, to extend the field of view. These technologies provide an interesting look at potential future production technology.
Faraday FFZero1
Faraday Future stepped out from the shadows to reveal a striking electric-powered concept car, dubbed the FFZero1. This car serves as a showcase for the company’s concept of a flat, scalable platform that could be adapted to numerous vehicle types (luxury sedan, crossover, compact sedan, and pickup truck) and drive configurations (FWD, RWD, and AWD).
The single-seat concept car features four “Quad Core” motors producing over 1,000 horsepower, with 0-60 mph times promised in less than 3 seconds and a top speed over 200 mph. As technology showcase, the FFZero1 demonstrates augmented reality projected ahead on the road and boasts the ability to educate itself about the driver’s needs in real time and make comfort, convenience, and performance adjustments. Read more here.
Ford & Smart Homes
The next step in car connectivity may involve homes. At CES, Ford demonstrated how its cars could link with smart devices like Amazon Echo and Wink. Such a connection could allow consumers to access the car from home to lock/unlock, start/stop the car (think: warm up, cool down), and check trip stats. From the couch, you could use the Amazon Alexa voice service to perform these functions in plain language, mimicking the abilities some automakers are enabling via smartphone apps. Going a step further, the car could be programmed to start at a certain time and to schedule service appointments.
Conversely, such a cozy car-home relationship could allow drivers to make adjustments to the home through voice commands. Such functions could include verifying the garage door is closed or porch light is on. Through Wink, a smart home platform, the Ford Synch AppLink could control devices, to turn on/off things around the house, such as open a garage door. The trend is clear: The Internet of things will soon network more things.
Garmin BabyCam
Garmin continues to find ways to add value to its portable navigation devices. The company’s latest trick is to pair the camera with a camera to monitor a baby in the second row. With the Garmin Drive 50 USA LM and BabyCam, the driver can choose to interrupt the displayed map to check on little ones. (The key is to not let this become a driver distraction.)
With the ability to place the camera where you want, the driver can readily monitor a rear-facing infant. Among the benefits of this system, the lack of a view of a their child is one of the reasons some parents cite for moving their child to forward-facing too soon.
The camera has night vision, enabling a discrete peek after dark. And the system will provide an onscreen alert to remind drivers to check for passengers before exiting the vehicle—a clever safety feature that could help avoid a tragic incident of unknowingly leaving a baby in a hot car.
The navigator and camera bundle will retail for $350 this month, and the camera is available individually for $200.
Kia Drive Wise
Kia announced that it plans to offer partially and fully autonomous vehicles for sale under the “Drive Wise” name. Building upon current technologies used in driver-assistance systems, Kia’s partially autonomous vehicle will arrive by 2020. By 2030, Kia plans to introduce completely autonomous vehicles that will “provide the driver with greater levels of assistance, anticipating and reacting to changing road conditions and potential hazards.”
The system on display at CES 2016 include Highway Autonomous Driving, which uses radar and camera systems to stay in or switch lanes; Urban Autonomous Driving, which relies on GPS and sensors to navigate through cities; and Emergency Stop System, which will bring a vehicle to a controlled stop if it detects the driver’s eyes stray from the road for too long.
The Drive Wise technology doesn’t entirely remove the driver from the equation, however. Kia says that the tech is designed to identify hazards as early as possible, giving the driver or the car enough time to take action.
Drive Wise will usher in new ways for the driver to interact with the vehicle. Shown in the i-Cockpit on display, these features range from changing driver preferences via fingerprint sensors to allowing the driver to change any cabin setting using gestures.
Toyota Next-Generation Maps
To support automatic driving, Toyota is looking to improve mapping data by collecting information from cameras and GPS devices in production vehicles. The concern is that mapping for these purposes has depended on special vehicles with three-dimensional laser scanners. While precise, they travel roads infrequently. By essentially crowd-sourcing the data collection, Toyota seeks a cost-effective way to collect more timely information.
The automaker admits that this method may be less precise, but by combining data, it estimates a margin of error of just 5 centimeters on straight roads. Toyota plans to integrate this ability in automated vehicles around 2020. It will seek to collaborate with mapmakers, and look for opportunities to share the information with other companies and governments.
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