Much of the flashiest new technology seen on advertising channels seems to apply to latest-gen cars. This is perhaps not representative of the wider market, with McKinsey noting that the USA used car market is almost double the size of it’s opposite. Bridging this gap is a wave of excellent new technology that is enhancing new vehicles and enabling older ones to new heights.
The assistant
Digital assistants are the voice of many homes in the USA today. Now they are starting to make their way into vehicles, bringing a level of automation with them. According to Axios, advances in AI and lingual processing is helping AI helpers to become truly integrated with in-car tech. This means that car owners purchasing a new or used vehicle are able to access a full range of data on that vehicle and then, if the hardware is correct, tie it all together with a digital assistant that will help the vehicle to feel like brand new.
Safety features
With the development of improved crumple zones and enhanced sensors, new vehicles are almost always safer than their predecessors. This is the view of Forbes, in their analysis of NHTSA data. However, technology is helping older vehicles to protect their drivers in much the same way. Of interest are black boxes, which, when tied with digital assistants, can help drivers to nip adverse habits in the bud before they become dangerous, and can also warn road users of dangerous stretches of highway or of poor weather conditions.
Augmented reality
Bringing all of these features together is the idea of augmented reality. Already a feature in some high-end electric vehicles augmented reality can be as simple as a machine learning satnav, and as amazing as an in-car HUD. ZDNet report that Wikitude is bringing this feature to the car through it’s a navigation device and that this will be available to new and used vehicles. Using a phone camera, it will draw and navigate a live map of the area – and that’s just for starters, with more intuitive displays planned for the future.
With augmented reality in the vehicle, driving will start to have a very futuristic slant to it. The best part is that your car needs not to be futuristic to take advantage of. Instead, cars of all ages and conditions will be able to retrofit their technology in order to embrace the revolution.
