Drowsy or drunken driving is one of the major causes of major traffic accidents. Automakers are applying driver negligence monitoring technologies to prevent it. 

Hyundai Mobis, the parts-making unit of Hyundai Motors, has come up with a smart cabin controller that can monitor and analyse various biometric signals such as driver's posture, heart rate, and brain wave in real time to ensure safe driving. 

This safety technology is focused on the occupants rather than on vehicle performance, working autonomously from the overall car package and making sure drivers are given the tools to drive as effectively as possible.

The company said that this is the first time a dedicated healthcare controller has been developed that can perform an integrated analysis of various vital signs.

Cheon Jae-seung, head of the R&D division, Hyundai Mobis, said: "Based on the unique vital signs database we've built up, we will upgrade this technology further to provide more features, including carsickness prevention, stress management, and the blocking of drunk driving."

The technology behind Hyundai Mobis' new cabin controller

Mobis, which has christened the new tech as Smart Cabin Controller, said it is equipped with four sensors: a 3D camera to capture the posture of occupants, an ECG sensor mounted on the steering wheel will keep a tab on the heart of the driver, an ear-set sensor will measure the brainwaves flowing around ears and an HVAC (heating, ventilation, and air conditioning) sensor will measure the temperature / humidity and carbon dioxide level of the cabin. 

The controller analyzes various vital signs collected from these sensors in real time to help with safe driving.

Based on such information, an alarm can ring or be displayed on any of the digital display systems in the vehicle. 

If the ECG sensor detects a high stress level in the driver, it can recommend switching to the autonomous switching mode or even stop the vehicle, if need be. 

It can open windows or switches to the outside-circulation mode if the CO2 level is too high. "This technology is expected to further evolve to be able to guide the vehicle to an emergency room in case of an emergency, such as cardiac arrest," Cheon Jae-seung added.

Last year, Hyundai Mobis unveiled 'M.Brain', a brainwave-based driver monitoring system, and 'M.VICS', an autonomous driving cockpit system equipped with various new healthcare technologies, including an ECG sensor, driver monitoring camera, and carsickness reduction technology.

The driver’s attention is assessed by combining the driving data such as lane departure, steering wheel control, acceleration and deceleration, and the other data of driver status such as eye blink detection.

There's good news for Android Auto users, as updates for the in-car, phone-mirroring system announced during Google IO 2022 have revealed a new-look UI and better functionality.

And it's about time.

Google made a number of Android Automotive OS and Android Auto update announcements on Thursday, and the one which really caught my attention was the new UI for the later system, which allows the interface to seamless scale to any screen-size in your car - as shown by the GIF above. 

It means those using Android Auto - where you connect your smartphone to your vehicle's display either wirelessly or via a USB cable - will see the system take full advantage of the space available. Something it doesn't do currently.

Years of frustration

Look, I love Android Auto. It's helped me navigate roads not only in my native England, but across Europe and North America for years. 

Google's clear navigation and real-time traffic makes driving abroad so much simpler, while integrations with Spotify and WhatsApp keep me entertained and in-touch.

It's not a perfect system, and I'm constantly frustrated whenever I link Android Auto in a new car and it uses only part of the screen available, often leaving a chunk of display redundant.

With the advancements of in-car tech, expedited by the uptick in electric vehicles (EVs) which are boasting ever increasing screen sizes, there's an awful lot of real estate to play with, and Auto is finally about to take advantage.

Even in my personal car, a Kia Niro, I'm looking forward to Android Auto filling the entirety of the central display as currently it fills roughly two thirds, leaving the final third unused.

The ability for Auto to intelligently scale to whatever screen size and orientation it's being shown on will allow it to display more app functions at once, reducing the distraction of having to switch between them, while also providing larger, clearer visuals.

The new UI will prioritize "core user needs", which means alongside mapping, you'll also see your other commonly used applications such as podcasts, music and audiobooks.

Once the update rolls out, Android Auto will also share relevant, contextual alerts and suggestions, such as the option to share your arrival time with others and reply to messages or missed calls with a single tap.

This Android Auto update won't solve everyone's bug-bears, but it's a huge positive step in the right direction for me.

Google says the update will roll out globally "just in time for summer", which means it should be imminent (May / June 2022). 

We contacted the search giant to ask for further clarification on this, but a spokesperson was unable to give us a firm date for the update to drop.

Automotive OS gets video boost

It's not just Android Auto that's getting new skills though, as Google also announced new video apps for its Android Automotive OS.

The Automotive OS is baked directly into vehicles and does not require your smartphone, giving you direct access to key Google apps and many more via the Play Store, all on the screen in the car.

The pool of vehicles which currently run Android Automotive OS is still relatively small, but GM, Ford, Nissan, Volvo, Polestar, Honda and Renault currently offer it in select models.

And soon (no exact date yet), you'll be able to watch video on a trio of new apps which are being added to the platform; Tubi, YouTube and Epix. They'll only be available when you're parked up - whether that's while you charge your EV, or wait on a curbside pickup.

A little further down the line (again, no firm date yet), you'll also be able to browse the web from the comfort of your car - when parked. These are features we've already seen in Teslas, but with Google bringing them to its in-car OS, it means more drivers in the future will gain access. 

• Your new BMW might not come with Android Auto and Apple CarPlay

Autopilot is one of the best known driver assistance systems, and has been available on Tesla cars since the end of 2015. The hardware and software used to run Autopilot has been upgraded over the years, and the system is now capable of performing a range of semi-autonomous functions.

These functions include traffic-aware cruise control, automated steering, an automatic parking system, driverless lane-changes, and even a function called Smart Summon, where a Tesla can navigate its way across a car park to wherever you are standing.

But, despite Autopilot being able to handle the steering, accelerator and brake in many situations, the system isn't foolproof and the driver remains fully responsible for their car at all times.

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What is on offer with Autopilot?

There are currently two tiers of Autopilot on new Tesla electric carss. As standard, every model comes with the Autopilot functions of Traffic-Aware Cruise Control and Autosteer. 

The former works just like the radar cruise control of other cars, keeping a safe distance from the vehicle ahead. The latter activates the steering to stay in lane when road markings are visible and cruise control is activated.

Next, and for a fee of $10,000 / £6,800 / AU$10,100, there is Full Self-Driving Capability, known as FSD. 

This includes extra Autopilot features and, Tesla hopes, will mean fully autonomous driving. For now, FSD includes a beta version of Navigate on Autopilot, Auto Lane Change, Autopark, Summon, Smart Summon and a beta version of Traffic and Stop Sign Control. 

A further feature called Autosteer on City Streets is coming soon (as of July 2021).

A recent change to how Autopilot is sold in the UK saw the introduction of Enhanced Autopilot, which is a £3,400 upgrade to the standard car and includes Navigate on Autopilot, Auto Lane Change, Autopark, Summon and Smart Summon. 

On top of this, FSD costs £6,800 and adds Traffic Light and Stop Sign Control, plus Autosteer on city streets once Tesla makes it available.

How to enable Tesla Autopilot

Enabling Autopilot depends on what type of Tesla you have. For the Model S and Model X, cruise control is switched on by pulling down once on the cruise control stalk. In the Model 3 and Model Y, it is enabled by pulling down once on the gear selector stalk.

To enable Autosteer, pull the aforementioned stalks twice instead of once. To help you know when Autosteer is available, a grey steering wheel icon appears next to the speedometer. 

This icon turns blue when Autosteer is engaged with two pulls of the gear selector or cruise control stalk.

Several of the more advanced Autopilot functions first need enabling in the settings menu before they are activated with two pulls of the stalk. 

For example, Navigate on Autopilot is enabled by going to Controls > Autopilot > Autosteer. 

Camera calibration is then required and the latest version of Navigation maps must be downloaded via Wi-Fi. Once you have done all that, there will be an option to navigate using Autopilot the next time you enter a destination into the navigation system.

How to enable Full Self-Driving Tesla Autopilot features

Navigate on Autopilot is switched on by pulling down twice on the gear selector/cruise control stalk, providing it has previously been enabled in the settings menu.

Similarly, Auto Lane Change is enabled by going to the Autopilot settings menu. After that, once in Autosteer mode (two downward pulls on the stalk), engaging the indicator will prompt the car to change lanes.

Autopark automatically scans for potential parking spaces when you are driving slowly. Parallel parking locations are indicated when driving below 15mph and perpendicular spaces are indicated below 10mph. 

A grey P icon appears on the left or right side of the instrument panel to show a suitable space has been found. To park, press the brake and shift to reverse, then tap the Start Autopark button that appears on the touchscreen and release the brake and steering wheel.

Once complete, the system will shift into park. You can stop the maneuver at any time by taking control of the steering wheel or pressing the brake.

Summon can be used to get your Tesla out of a tight parking spot while standing outside. To do this, open the Tesla smartphone app and tap on Summon, then press the forward or reverse buttons. 

You can watch Summon in action in the video below

Model S and Model X owners can instead use the key fob, by holding the center of the fob for three seconds until the car's hazard lights come on. Then press the trunk or frunk (boot or front boot) buttons to move the car backwards or forwards.

Smart Summon lets your car drive further, potentially all the way across a parking lot, while navigating around objects. This can only be used on private land and driveways. 

To use the feature, open the Tesla app, tap on Summon then select the Smart Summon icon. Now press and hold the Come To Me button, or tap on the target icon and set a destination for your car to drive itself to and press the Go To Target button. 

Releasing either button immediately stops the car. You need to be within 200 feet of the vehicle to use Smart Summon.

Lastly, the beta of Traffic Light and Stop Sign Control is enabled by navigating (while parked) to Controls > Autopilot > Traffic Light and Stop Sign Control (Beta), then engaging Autopilot with two pulls of the gear or cruise control stalk. 

The car will then slow when approaching every stop sign and traffic light, even if the light is green. If it is safe to proceed, tap the accelerator to tell the car to carry on instead of stopping.

• Tesla to open Supercharger network to other electric cars later this year

It would be fair to say Tesla pioneered over-the-air software updates for cars. Ever since the Model S arrived back in 2012, the user interface and software features have gradually improved via updates downloaded through the car's Wi-Fi connection.

As well as tweaks to – and, sometimes a total visual overhaul of – the Tesla infotainment system, software updates add features like rain-sensing wipers and the option to switch creep on or off, and bring a constant flow of improvements to the Autopilot driver assistance system.

Updating a Tesla is much like updating the software on your smartphone. The car will let you know when an update is available (or you can check manually), and it is downloaded over Wi-Fi, before being installed. 

It is crucial to remember that, much like your smartphone, your Tesla cannot be used – or charged – while software updates are being installed.

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How to check for new software updates for your Tesla

If you haven't been notified about a new software update, you can check manually by opening the Software tab on the touchscreen. 

If a new update is available, a notification will appear on the center of the screen, giving you the option to download and install right away, or schedule for later.

Updates can be downloaded over the car's cellular connection while driving, but you are best off connecting to Wi-Fi for the fastest, smoothest download.

You can also check for an update by tapping Controls then Software. If there is no update available you’ll see the message: "Your car software is up to date." 

If an update is available the car will say so, and a yellow download icon will appear at the top of the screen. Your best option is to connect your Tesla to Wi-Fi at home, then tap the yellow icon to begin the download, or schedule it for later.

The download can happen in the background while using the car, but the installation can only be done while parked. 

If plugged into a charger, charging will stop until the installation process is complete. A software update cannot be stopped once the installation process has begun.

How to start a Tesla software update

To start the update, tap on the yellow icon at the top of the infotainment display. Here you can start it right away, or pick a time for the update to begin (such as during the night when the car is not needed). 

Once scheduled, the yellow icon will turn white and disappear when the update starts. Tap the yellow icon at any time before the update starts to change the schedule.

If you want to start the update right away, tap Controls then Software. Software updates can also be installed via the Tesla smartphone app. 

To read more about what is included with each software update, the release notes can be found by navigating to Software > Release Notes on the infotainment display.

Choosing between Standard and Advanced software updates

Tesla cars let you pick whether you install new updates as soon as they are available, or a little later. 

This option is available on software version 2019.16 and later, and is accessible by navigating to Controls, then Software and Software Update Preference.

Advanced means your car will grab the update as soon as it is available for your vehicle configuration in your region. 

You might choose Standard if you are worried about any potential bugs, or if you want time to read up on the new features included in an update before installing it for yourself.

How long do Tesla software updates take?

The download time will vary depending on your car's internet connection. For the installation itself, Tesla says that you can begin troubleshooting if more than three hours have passed and the update isn't complete.

There are three ways to troubleshoot a faulty software update. The first is to reboot the touchscreen by holding the two scroll wheels on the steering wheel for 20 seconds, or until the Tesla 'T' logo appears on the touchscreen. 

The instrument cluster of the Model S and Model X is reset by holding the two upper buttons on the steering wheel (those above the scroll wheels) for 20 seconds.

Lastly, a vehicle reboot is done by going to Controls then E-Brake and Power Off in the Model S and Model X, then tap the brake pedal to switch the car back on. 

In a Model 3, this is done by navigating to Settings, then Safety and Security, then Power off. Again, the brake to turn the car back on.

• Tesla to open Supercharger network to other electric cars later this year

Google made a number of automotive announcements during its Google IO 2021 keynote, including the integration of a new digital car key feature as part of the Android 12 update.

If this sounds kind of familiar, then you're not wrong. Apple has offered its 'CarKey' digital vehicle access to users since July 2020 with the introduction of iOS13.6, and Samsung launched its own service at the start of 2021 on the Galaxy S21 Plus and S21 Ultra, after partnering with Audi, BMW, Ford and Genesis.

However, the move by Google to build digital car key access directly into Android 12 opens up the feature to a wealth of new devices and users. The feature will allow you to unlock, lock and even start the engine from your smartphone.

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It also uses UWB (ultra wideband) technology, meaning that you can just walk up to your car and it'll unlock, without you even having to take your phone out. 

You'll also be able to share digital access to your vehicle with others – allowing you to easily lend your car to a friend without giving them a physical key and setting a limited period of access.

At the moment, it's unclear just how many handsets will be supported – all Google has said so far is that it'll be available on select Pixel and Samsung Galaxy phones when it becomes available later this year. 

We do know that Google has partnered with BMW (and others) and that the digital key feature will be compatible with the upcoming BMW iX electric car.

Look ma, no wires!

There's positive news for those who frequently use Android Auto in their vehicles – which allows you to mirror core smartphone apps onto your car’s main display.

Apps such as Spotify, Google Maps and Google Assistant are available on Android Auto, and can provide you with enhanced levels of control and richer features than some infotainment systems.

However, one of its limitations is that in many vehicles you have to physically plug your Android smartphone into your car with a USB cable to get Auto to work.

Google says more and more manufacturers – including Honda, Ford and BMW – are now offering wireless support in new cars, although just how many of the 100 million Android Auto-supporting vehicles on the road have the wireless feature is still unclear.

• Yes, even Lamborghini is working on an electric supercar

The wraps have been taken off the next generation of the BMW iDrive system, bringing a host of new features and up-to-date connectivity to its fleet – and it's set to debut in the firm's upcoming all-electric car, the BMW iX.

It's with iX divers and passengers in mind that BMW has approached the new iDrive system, giving it a clear focus on electric cars going forward.

The main feature of the system are the dual-displays, with a 12.3-inch information display behind the steering wheel and a central 14.9-inch control display, which are designed to look like one unit.

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BMW says the screens have a resolution density of 200ppi, which is a little less than the 264ppi you find on the iPad 10.2 and iPad Air 4, but should still result in a clear display.

There's a subtle curve to the displays too, and they're angled towards the driver to aid the touch control element. With more screens comes fewer buttons, and BMW says it's reduced the number of physical switches by almost 50% with its new iDrive system.

The reduction in buttons is something that's becoming more common in new vehicles – and especially electric cars – as manufacturers looks to a more minimalist cabin.

BMW has retained some buttons for key functions – such as shortcuts to the nav, media, drive modes and even the heated front and heated rear windows controls.

Most of the physical controls are located between the front two seats, and this area is crowned by a glass-effect (in the BMW iX at least) circular touch controller. 

Those familiar with BMW's previous iDrive systems will be familiar with this rotary disc control, and it's been given a face-lift for this latest generation of the system.

Talk to me

While some users will find this touch control, and the physical volume scroll wheel below it, more natural to use, BMW is keen for drivers and passengers to interact via the iDrive touch displays and also via its own personal voice assistant.

The new iDrive system features the BMW Intelligent Personal Assistant, which operates in a similar way to Apple's Siri and Google Assistant, allowing for natural language interaction between yourself and the vehicle.

This isn't the first time a voice assistant has been used in a car, and it's also not BMW's first foray into the tech, but it's applied greater AI to its latest version, making it more intelligent, allowing it to adjust to your individual needs and routines, as well as the context of the current situation.

What's more, you can give the assistant a name of your choice, which you can then use as a prompt to engage with it. 

And if naming your assistant isn't enough, BMW has also portrayed the AI as a visualization which – it claims – "gives it a 'face'" as well as "a trustworthy and appealing aura" while it "displays the dynamism required to be able to express different emotions and states of mind non-verbally."

What this translates to is a cluster of balls onscreen, which will perform different movements as the AI listens, thinks and then answers your commands and questions, to make you feel like it's actively working with you in the conversation.

Just how well the intelligent assistant will work remains to be seen and we'll put it to the test later this year when the BMW iX becomes available.

The new iDrive system is built on the BMW Operating System 8.0, and it also boasts 5G connectivity. BMW says that the 5G connection provides around 40x faster data exchange between the vehicle and external elements.

That means faster over-the-air updates for new features in the future (BMW says the new system can process a 1GB update in 20 minutes), and also better communication between your car and everything else – be it other vehicles, traffic lights or other smart city infrastructure.

BMW Maps has also been updated as part of Operating System 8.0, and it can now show full parking and charging information on the map as well as the usual navigation functions – all of which work together to provide enhanced route planning.

The system will also learn your regular driving habits, suggesting destinations and potential issues for frequently driven routes. There will also be full support for Apple CarPlay and Android Auto, allowing you to mirror core smartphone apps on BMW's curved displays.

The new BMW iDrive system will make its debut in the fully electric BMW iX which launches this "summer" (likely June – August), and will then find its way into its i4 electric car before rolling out to the rest of the BMW fleet.

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Premium French auto maker DS has announced a brand new car in the form of the DS 4 - a vehicle which is looking to take on not only compact SUVs, but also premium sedans.

It boasts a bold, angular design in-keeping with the rest of the DS range, and comes equipped with a number of premium tech features - including an intriguing 5-inch display which sits where a traditional gear shift would be.

The DS 4 will initially be available as a plug-in hybrid, with a quoted range of 50km / over 30 miles on the electric motor in EV mode, while a 4-cylinder, 180hp petrol engine will be on hand to significantly extend the driving range between refuels.

You'll be able to pick the DS 4 up in three different models; DS 4, DS 4 Cross and DS 4 Performance Line, with seven colors to choose from.

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Externally the car features LED headlights which can move left and right to illuminate round corners, huge 20-inch wheels - which DS claims won't negatively affect ride comfort - and a shapely and athletic stance giving it a strong road presence.

However, it's in the cabin where things get more interesting. Large displays are quickly becoming the norm in new cars and the DS 4 is no exception.

There's a large, central landscape display which sits flush with the dash, and behind the steering wheel you'll find a digital instrument cluster. However, DS has a sneaky third display too, with a 5-inch touchscreen sitting in between the two front seats, just above the gear select buttons and volume control.

This screen - which has been dubbed 'DS Smart Touch' - isn't there to display any information, however. Instead it's DS' solution to providing distraction-free control of the all-new smartphone-like infotainment system that's built into the DS 4.

You'll be able to preset up to six shortcuts, each with their own gesture movement for use on the Smart Touch display. DS says this will allow you to launch your most-used features using your finger on the screen, without the need to look away from the road. It can also be used to move around the interface.

Whether the Smart Touch screen provides the level of control and usability that DS claims remains to be seen, and we'll be sure to put it to the test when we get behind the wheel of the new DS 4.

And a whole lot more

It's not just a sneakily added additional display that the DS 4 has going for it - there's a raft of other tech too.

The DS 4 is equipped with new Extended HUD (heads-up display) which uses augmented reality to display alerts on the road ahead, as well as providing useful information such as the speed limit, driving directions, audio playback and incoming calls.

The viewable area of the HUD is equivalent to 21 inches, allowing the DS 4 to display a range of information in your eye line simultaneously. 

There's an infra-red camera on the front of the DS 4, providing night vision capabilities which can detect animals and pedestrians up to 100m away and alert the driver to the potential hazards.

You'll find another front-facing camera at the top of the windshield, which is responsible for scanning the road surface ahead and automatically adjusting the suspension for a smoother ride.

Then there's a further four cameras - two on either side of the car - offering up blind spot protection and cross traffic alert to ensure you don't roll into moving vehicles when reversing, plus a whole lot more car tech as well.

The DS 4 will go on sale later during the fourth quarter of 2021, with UK availability confirmed for November, but pricing is yet to be confirmed.

• Apple may have chosen the manufacturer to build the Apple Car

Ford is now one of many automotive manufacturers to share the reins of production with a tech giant. The Michigan based company has teamed up with Google to add its Android operating system to its vehicles beginning in 2023.

Ford has signed a six-year long partnership with the tech giant, which cements Google Cloud as the primary provider when the updated vehicles roll out in 2023.

Much like Tesla’s own operating system, Android will be installed into Ford vehicles and will not require external Android devices to function. Drivers will be able to make use of Google Assistant, Maps and more. However, Ford has not yet specified which specific models will receive all this digital finery.

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Instead, the company opted to say that “millions” of cars under the Ford and Lincoln brands will receive the upgrades. Naturally, we’d expect the rollout to begin with its more high end vehicles at first. The vehicles will be available worldwide excluding China where Google suffers a blanket ban on all their services. 

Apple enthusiasts need not despair. Ford explained that its vehicles will still share compatibility with Apple CarPlay.

A smart partnership

Ford making use of Android is not unprecedented, either. Ford joins other car manufacturers such as General Motors and Volvo in partnering with Google for Android integration in their vehicles. It’s a move that’s becoming increasingly common as tech firms seem keener than ever to offer in-vehicle smartphone and infotainment experiences.

Both Google and Ford have also formed Team Upshift, billed as a task force of employees from both Ford and Google to drive innovation as part of the new partnership.

Writing in a Medium post, David McClelland, VP of Strategy and Partnerships at Ford, stated that innovations “may include projects ranging from modernizing our plants through vision AI, developing new retail experiences when buying a vehicle, creating new ownership offers based on connected vehicle data, and more.”

The partnership has all the makings of a success, offering the best of Google’s technologies in a hands-free format. The voice activated Assistant is sure to be useful on the go, perhaps if the driver is in an unfamiliar area and looking for points of interest.

On the other hand, we can potentially spot a number of privacy concerns stemming from such a partnership. These “new retail experiences” as mentioned by McClelland point to drivers’ data becoming a treasure trove of saleable information for Google.

• Ford Sync 4 brings smartphone control as standard to all new cars 

Via The Verge

It's official: my old 'dumb' car is no longer good enough. Setting aside its seemingly constant need for repairs, sagging upholstery and fading clear coat, what really grinds my gears is its lack of smart connectivity.

Sure, you could argue that a vehicle's purpose is simply to get you from A to B, and that everything else is an unnecessary luxury.

However, having now spent a weekend experiencing the latest in vehicle smarts via a 2020-model Ford Puma and its accompanying FordPass smartphone app, I've come to the realization that these futuristic bells and whistles go a long way towards unlocking a car's true potential.

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Available for both iOS and Android, the FordPass app can be linked to any Ford car that boasts a FordPass Connect embedded modem. 

To be clear, it's worth noting that FordPass is not the only connected car app available for smartphones.

There are a number of other manufacturer-specific apps available, many of which charge a monthly or yearly subscription price to cover the cost of data used by a car's embedded 4G modem – in fact, FordPass itself used to charge $20 per month in the US, and was available through carrier AT&T. 

FordPass has since become mostly free, apart from a few region-specific extras, such as Live Traffic and Local Hazard information, and the ability to use the car's Wi-Fi hotspot. It's also started to roll out internationally, and in Australia where we had our trial for this story, it debuted in July 2020.

Getting started

Before setting up FordPass, you'll need to make sure your vehicle's connectivity settings are enabled via the Ford Sync infotainment screen.

Once that's done, the linking process is relatively straightforward – simply download and launch the FordPass app to begin the activation process.

Thankfully, activating your car for use with FordPass is easy. Once you've created an account in the FordPass app, the next step involves entering your car's VIN (vehicle identification number), which can be found on the driver-side door frame.

A car's VIN is made up of a long string of numbers and letters. Luckily, you won't need to type the whole thing out, as the FordPass app offers the option to use your smartphone's camera to scan the VIN's barcode and speed up the process.

The FordPass app will then find your vehicle, allowing you to move on to the fun stuff, like giving your car a nickname. Having been loaned a Ford Puma to test drive, we quickly settled on the perfect moniker for a car that's both stylish and smart: Puma Thurman.

Next, tap on 'Activate Vehicle' in the FordPass app. You'll then be asked to confirm the connection on your car's Sync system. Once that's done, you're off and running.

Are you turned on right now?

The most immediately impressive feature offered by FordPass Connect is the ability to send remote commands to your vehicle.

On the FordPass app's home screen, you'll find a large blue 'Start' button. Holding this on-screen button down for a few seconds will actually turn the car's engine and select systems on, regardless of how close you are to it. 

Doing this will activate your vehicle's air conditioning, meaning you can cool or heat the vehicle's cabin ahead of your arrival depending on which settings you used last. 

Having now entered what's sure to be a scorching Australian summer, the ability to cool the Puma's interior before entering it proved to be one of my favorite features. Likewise, I imagine the ability to warm a car up ahead of time during freezing winter months will prove just as valuable to those living in colder climes.

In my experience, it usually took around 10 seconds for the Ford Puma to turn on after pressing the button. The car will remain powered up for the next 15 minutes, so it's only worth using this feature if you're planning on climbing into the vehicle within that timeframe.

And, once you are back to your car, you'll still need to press its physical Start/Stop button in order to drive away.

Narrowly avoiding a Wolf Creek-like situation

While the ability to remotely start our loaner Puma was greatly appreciated, it was another feature that proved to be most useful – in fact, you could say it actually saved my bacon.

In an effort to take a really nice picture of the car in question for this article, my wife and I drove out to a remote bushland area, roughly an hour and a half's drive from our home in the suburbs.

Upon spotting a suitably picturesque and quiet area, we parked the Ford Puma on a patch of grass next to the road and hopped out to take some photos. After settling on a few shots, we returned to the car only to find it had locked itself.

Now, given that neither of us is used to driving a keyless vehicle, we completely forgot to take the key fob with us, resulting in our being locked out of the car... in the middle of the bush... under the hot Aussie sun.

Immediately, panic set in and expletives started to fly. However, after 15 seconds of pure terror, I remembered that FordPass has a remote locking and unlocking feature. 

Hurriedly, I fired up the app and pressed the unlock button. After a number of agonizing seconds, the Puma unlocked itself. To quote American Psycho's Patrick Bateman, "relief washes over me in an awesome wave."

I shudder to think how long we might've waited for assistance had the unlock feature not been readily available from the FordPass app.

Other FordPass features

Had the unlock feature not been available, it's nice to know that 24-hour roadside assistance is also available from the FordPass app, with a button that let's you call the service directly.

Additionally, the FordPass app also offers a vehicle location feature, which will track down your car via GPS if you've forgotten where you parked, so long as you've enabled location services in your settings.

Making use of the car's built-in GPS navigation system, the FordPass app offers a Map feature which lets you search for destinations, including businesses and services, and then send the directions straight your vehicle's Sync system.

Apart from the features listed above, FordPass also provides the car owner with a number of helpful monitoring tools that keep tabs on your car.

I was able to check how much fuel the car had in its tank (including an estimate of how many kilometres I'd be able to drive before the tank was empty), as well as the total number of kilometres the car had on its odometer.

On top of this, the app also let me check the individual pressure of each tyre, which is far more convenient than having to do it manually, and also view the car's complete service history.

Ridin' smartly

If there's one thing I've taken away from my weekend with the Ford Puma and FordPass, it's that the smart car future is already here, and you don't need to fork out for a ridiculously expensive electric vehicle to start taking advantage of it.

I'd already decided that my old dumb car needed to go, but now I'll definitely be thinking long and hard about replacing it with a smarter, connected car that offers some of these convenient, remotely activated features from the palm of your hand. 

Whichever car that ends up being, one thing's certain – it will have to live up to the FordPass experience.

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The latest safety feature planned at Tesla is a sensing system that can warn you if you've left a child behind in a car that's too hot. As an added bonus, it could customize airbag deployment to each particular passenger, and deter thieves as well.

As per Reuters, Tesla is seeking approval for the new system from the FCC (Federal Communications Commission) in the US, as it would involve millimeter-wave sensors being boosted to higher power levels than current laws allow.

If permission is granted, the system would make use of four transmission antennas and three reception antennas driven by a radar unit at the front. The setup would be able to 'see' through blankets and child restraints better than a standard camera.

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What's more, the hardware that Tesla is proposing would be able to detect breathing patterns and even heart rates, so there would be no confusion between a toddler and a teddy bear left on the back seat of a Tesla vehicle.

Internal upgrades

Being able to more accurately determine the size and weight of passengers would help with safer airbag deployment too, Tesla says – offering a more reliable system than the ones currently offered by in-seat weight sensors.

The millimeter-wave sensor monitoring would also be an upgrade on existing systems in terms of being able to detect someone breaking into the car or smashing one of the windows, according to the application filed by Tesla.

Tesla reports that official statistics show that more than 50 children died after being left behind in hot cars in both 2019 and 2018. More than half of those incidents were because the child was forgotten.

There's no fixed timescale for when this application might be approved or when the technology might find its way into Tesla's motor vehicles. The company's cars already come with a wealth of sensors, in part to enable certain self-driving features.

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Via Engadget

It’s all about the sensors. That seems to be the current mantras for all automakers who are slowly making self-driving vehicles more possible.

In a recent test of the Nissan Titan full-size truck, I noticed all of the sensors right away. When I backed out of my garage, when I parked at the mall, when I arrived at an intersection known for being a bit hectic. There are sensors pointing forward, to the side, and to the rear at all times.

Backing out of my garage might not seem too stressful, but it can be. There are kids everywhere, my wife tends to park right behind me at random times, and I’ve been known to leave my bike sitting behind parked cars. When you move backwards, the Titan uses a sensor that can detect objects behind you and alert you to dangers.

If you don’t quite notice these obstructions, the Titan uses a technology called Rear Automatic Braking to bring you to a full-stop. Bike saved, in my case.

At that intersection, it gets even more interesting. The Titan is a massive truck and it can be hard to tell where you sit in the road at times. When you pull out in traffic, a sensor can alert you to other cross-traffic and even pedestrians. This feature is called Automatic Emergency Braking with Pedestrian Detection and can brake if you fail to respond as well.

Rear Cross Traffic Alert watches for other cars creeping up on you from the rear, which is useful in intersections when you can’t quite see behind you. Sensors also look to your side for vehicles in the next lane over, they watch for lane markings and can alert you if you drift out of your lane on the highway.

They can even spot a slowdown up to two cars in front of you on the highway. Known as Forward Collision warning, it’s a sensor that can look for congestion even when you can’t quite see it yourself because your forward view is obstructed.

(As a quick tech diversion, the sensor actually bounces the signal around the car in front of you and can detect two cars ahead. If you have ever looked up a weather report on your phone, you know how this works. The Doppler radar uses for tracking weather does roughly the same thing, measuring the distance of a signal over and over to track storm fronts.)

The road ahead

Where do we go from here? That’s a question I’ve been asking for a few years now writing this column. It’s clear we will use more and more sensors, detecting objects, highway impediments, and people but also connecting to construction zones changes, new roadways and off-ramps, businesses located near us, and monitoring accidents in real-time, even as they occur.

The sensors are not only getting better and more common in all cars, they are now more affordable for the automakers who install them in even lower cost cars.

That’s good news for all of us. The Nissan Titan is just one example of how multiple sensors can help in a variety of conditions, some that are hard to predict. I’m all for this type of innovation, especially if the driver doesn’t have to stay quite as vigilant at all times.

On The Road is TechRadar's regular look at the futuristic tech in today's hottest cars. John Brandon, a journalist who's been writing about cars for 12 years, puts a new car and its cutting-edge tech through the paces every week. One goal: To find out which new technologies will lead us to fully self-driving cars.

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Driving in heavy traffic these days doesn’t have to be so stressful. In the past, if you commute each morning (remember those days?) or drive for fun and get caught in a traffic jam, it can be a hectic experience. Cars suddenly stop on a dime for no reason. The traffic flow is more like a series of false starts. If you are not constantly paying attention (and I mean constantly), you can easily bump into another car in front of you.

When I used to commute on a daily basis, I had at least three minor fender-ding mishaps. Nothing to call the insurance company over and not even cosmetically obvious, but still annoying. I used to specifically drive lower cost vehicles for that reason. I used to drive to Minneapolis and people don’t pay attention. These days, it’s quite different.

In the 2020 Nissan Altima, for example, a feature called Pro Pilot Assist can bring the car to a full stop on its own, sensing the car in front of you. It used to work only in higher-end cars from companies like BMW and the luxury brand Infiniti (which is part of Nissan). In fact, the first adaptive cruise control I have ever tested was in an Infiniti car maybe 10 years ago.

Sensors can monitor the speed of traffic at all times. If a car brakes in front of you, then the Altima also brakes. You don’t have to be 100% vigilant, which is not an excuse to use your phone but is just a comment on being human. We can’t stare straight ahead at all times but a computer certainly can (and won’t ever complain).

This helps us drive because weird things happen. In the Altima, I decided to drive to Minneapolis like the old days and noticed how I was less stressed out. I let the car do the hard work. As the traffic surged, and then suddenly moved forward and pretended to be untangled, the Altima could respond perfectly.

Not all adaptive cruise control can bring you to a full stop, especially in lower cost cars. Typically it's meant for 'low speeds', but if you come to a stop it disengages. Since you can go to a full stop and resume, the Altima is even better as a commuter car. I liked how the car didn’t make sudden stops but eases you down to a slower speed or stops, then resumes on its own.

Go with the flow

In the future, cars will do much more – they will not only come to a full stop, but they will connect to other cars and even highway monitors. Let’s say a city wants to encourage more traffic flow. Someday, an operator could communicate with all cars to separate farther apart and create a more even flow.

Today, you can do this yourself by pressing a button on the steering wheel to stay closer to the car in front of you or farther away. It depends on your own trust factor in how close you want to get, although the Altima is happy to adjust speed no matter which setting you use. (I tend to keep it about halfway – not too close, not too far away.)

Apart from the safety factors, there’s a big win for fuel economy as well. If every car was adjusting speed constantly and staying a certain distance away from other cars, we would all drive a bit faster and not slow down as much, which means better fuel savings. (The one thing that can hurt your MPG is constantly having to speed up in traffic.)

I like how it works in the Altima, even if I’m hoping the days of fully automated traffic arrive sooner than another decade or two from now.

On The Road is TechRadar's regular look at the futuristic tech in today's hottest cars. John Brandon, a journalist who's been writing about cars for 12 years, puts a new car and its cutting-edge tech through the paces every week. One goal: To find out which new technologies will lead us to fully self-driving cars.

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With apologies to Audi and several other automakers, the best car nav display in any car is in the 2020 Jaguar XE. I was blown away by the crisp and clear directional aid, which shows up in the dashboard view above the steering wheel. The lines are clear, the colors subdued, and the fact that it's so functional – helping you arrive at your destination – is a major bonus.

Driving cars these days is an exercise in interface overindulgence. Because car companies can provide tiny little icons everywhere and use a wide palette of colors, they do. I’ve often felt as though I was driving in a car with every widget enabled. On the XE, it’s more streamlined.

The Connected Navigation Pro feature shows a navigation map with easy to identify grays and blacks, green for grass and blue for lakes. I’ve tested the Audi A4 and other cars many times, and they use Google Earth. It’s nice, but can be a little disorienting and too detailed.

I drove the XE all over town and watched the display in front of me, using the voice-controlled feature to suggest destinations. I liked how functional it was. If you need to get to a library or a restaurant, the car provides visual and auditory guidance. Many cars use extra frills, but they do not really help when you are late for a meeting or really hungry.

The display is also functional for many other reasons. With just a few taps, I was able to configure the display to show me the speed indicator and the map (off to the left). I could see two dials, one showing the speed and one showing my RPMs. I was able to completely disable all of the files and nav and only see the collision avoidance features.

That last setting is almost sanguine. You only see the hood of the car and then indicators of problems. I like to keep things simple at times, especially when I am driving for many hours on a highway. I don’t even need to see my speed – I have set it using the adaptive cruise control function, and the car can adapt to traffic levels automatically. Plus, you can see the speed in the virtual Heads-Up Display (HUD) that appears above the hood.

Cut the clutter

Back to the nav screen, though. Here’s the most important factor when driving these days. I like to reduce clutter. The main display between the seats on the dash can show points of interest, the nearest gas stations (Jaguar uses the word petrol), and even subtleties like the speed limit. That’s all fine – maybe a passenger is with you who can inspect those details. There's a time and a place for more interface options in cars. However, they can also be distracting.

The XE display above the steering wheel is trim enough that I didn’t find myself glancing at it to find objects near me. The focus is on the destination only.

In future cars, we will see much more of this. Adaptable interfaces will know when we are tired or have been driving for a long time, and they will turn off extra interface features.

You just need to drive (or let the car drive), and you may not even need any media functions. Honestly, the goal is to help you reach your destination at that point. I never drove tired or hungry, but I could see how the subtle blacks and grays allow you to focus and remove distractions.

I wish more cars would follow suit. I can enable every navigational aid under the sun in the XE. I just preferred having most of them turned off. It helped me do what I love most: just drive.

On The Road is TechRadar's regular look at the futuristic tech in today's hottest cars. John Brandon, a journalist who's been writing about cars for 12 years, puts a new car and its cutting-edge tech through the paces every week. One goal: To find out which new technologies will lead us to fully self-driving cars.

We’re getting there. Slowly but surely, the autonomous, intelligent car of tomorrow is arriving one feature at a time. The latest? Mercedes-Benz now offers the Mercedes-Benz User Experience (MBUX) intelligent assistant in the 2020 Mercedes-Benz GLC 300.

This fantastic sport-utility is loaded with new technology like an augmented video overlay for the navigation system. However, I was most interested in testing out the new voicebot because it connects to some of the car features and doesn’t just tell you the weather.

MBUX is actually something I’ve been wanting to test for quite some time, and a feature I’ve dreamed about in cars ever since I first tested out Apple Siri, Amazon Alexa, and Google Assistant.

Those bots work fine for navigation, weather, and controlling your music, and when you connect your phone they work seamlessly in the car (you can use the steering wheel voice activation button, for example). Amazon Alexa now works in many Ford vehicles. 

The problem is that they don’t really know you're in a car. While Apple phones do know you are driving (an iPhone can interpret the speed and movement and will lock down your phone automatically), no phone assistant today can actually lock the doors on command, change any settings in the car, or do much of anything that’s directly related to driving.

Just say the word

MBUX is different. For an entire week, I took great joy in being able to tell the bot to raise the climate-control by two degrees, change the ambient color, or set the seat warmer to level two.

I only had to say "Hey Mercedes" to activate the bot and make my voice command. The bot can also answer random questions about celebrities or give you the forecast. It’s nice to be able to ask about the weather and then see the forecast in the center display.

In a parking lot at Trader Joe’s one evening, while my wife was inside shopping, I activated the reading light by voice. Then I did it a few more times only because I thought that was really cool.

It’s not so magical in terms of a safety feature or even that high-tech (after all, it’s a reading light), but the fact that there’s now a voicebot that can control settings in the car opens up a whole new world of automation and, eventually, autonomous vehicle control.

Forget navigation and the radio. What I really want is to talk to my car all day. I want to eventually be able to ask the car to drive me home, or to go pick up my kids. “Hey Mercedes, go add some air to the left rear tire” is a dream of mine for autonomous vehicle control. (Whether there will be another bot waiting at the service station to do the fill-up is still an open question.)

I’d like to be able to control all of the lights, all of the safety features, make commands about where to drive even when I’m not in the car, and hand over control for those long and boring stretches of the road when I’ve driving to see family in another state. I’d like the car to talk to me as well. “John, we’ll arrive at your destination in a few minutes, you might want to wake up.”

That’s coming eventually. For now, I was impressed with all of the MBUX features and how easy it was to use for common functions. I’ve officially started talking to my car all day.

On The Road is TechRadar's regular look at the futuristic tech in today's hottest cars. John Brandon, a journalist who's been writing about cars for 12 years, puts a new car and its cutting-edge tech through the paces every week. One goal: To find out which new technologies will lead us to fully self-driving cars.

When technology works, it’s amazing and even life-altering. You wonder how you communicated without a smartphone, or how you connected with people before social media existed. With cars, there are safety features that can seem almost magical. The car takes over for you and performs and operation you might not be able to do yourself.

Case in point is the 2020 Jeep Compass Trailhawk 4x4 and the Selec-Terrain feature I tested recently. It’s designed to intelligently manage the drivetrain for you in certain conditions, such as muddy roads or snow and ice. I tested the Snow setting for an entire week because, in my area, the snow moved in for several days in blizzard-like conditions.

This 4x4 crossover kept me centered on the road during an ice storm, even preventing the car from fish-tailing when I overcompensated. I was amazed at how the Compass Trailhawk intelligently managed power evenly to the tires even though I was fighting against the algorithms at times. According to the Jeep reps who told me about how Selec-Terrain works, the car automatically detects slippage on tires when you use Snow mode. The vehicle then provides more torque to the wheels that do have better grip on the road.

In real-time, it’s an interesting sensation. A passenger with me also felt the change – the car seems to take over slightly. What would normally happen – you’d fishtail and slide into the ditch – feels more like guardrails on the car that keep you straight. And, you don’t need to do anything differently other than keep driving and avoid overreacting.

Another feature related to Snow mode is that the Jeep will use second gear when you first start out on the road, avoiding the temptation to punch it too fast and then spin out. This is similar to what happens in other vehicles by Infiniti and in other 4x4 vehicles.

The Electronic Stability Control (or ESC) also kicks in when you use Snow mode. This well-known and common feature will constantly watch for strange behavior, such as the potential to fishtail, and attempt to correct you quickly.

The road ahead

In the future, I’m expecting cars to go to the next step. We won’t need to select the drive mode anymore, but instead, the car will know it is snowing or know that the road is muddy or wet. This might be based on current weather conditions but more likely the car will use sensors to interpret the road conditions in real-time.

It’s not rocket science, actually. Today, windshield wipers can detect when it’s raining by monitoring for wetness. They use a beam that knows when there is water obstructing the view and can even measure the amount of water. If it’s a light rain that is barely noticeable, the wipers won’t activate.

In a similar way, road sensors could look for environment conditions on the road or take readings from the city or sensors on the road. Icy pavement on a country road? A future car would know it should activate Snow mode for the drivetrain. We’d be able to focus even more on driving and know that the car is adjusting itself on the fly.

Hopefully this sensor technology debuts soon.

On The Road is TechRadar's regular look at the futuristic tech in today's hottest cars. John Brandon, a journalist who's been writing about cars for 12 years, puts a new car and its cutting-edge tech through the paces every week. One goal: To find out which new technologies will lead us to fully self-driving cars.

At CES 2020 in Las Vegas, Bosch unveiled a new AI-powered sun visor that prevents you being dazzled, without obscuring your view of the road.

Driving a car and being temporarily blinded by the glare of the sun can be a scary and dangerous experience that happens all too often in certain weather conditions. If you’ve spent any time behind the wheel, or even as a passenger, then you’ll know just how dazzling the sun can be on a bright clear day. It’s a bit of a nightmare.

However, while being blinded by glare is a year-round issue, matters tend to be made worse during winter time when the sun is lower in the sky and the weather is generally that little bit more lousy. Indeed, the problem can also be exacerbated when the sun hits wet road surfaces to create a double whammy of dazzle. If you’ve experienced it while driving then you’ll know just how quickly it can happen and it’s not always expected either.

While vehicles have long been fitted with fold-down sun visors, this clunky solution is pretty old school and far from ideal. Although most visors can be adjusted, you can't always get them at the best angle for reducing glare from the sun. We’ve all had to put up with this annoying issue for years, but Bosch has been working on a potential solution that uses AI to tackle the problem.

This funky innovation is called the Virtual Visor, which is a transparent LCD panel that intuitively blocks out glare as you drive, as well as delivering a clear view of the road ahead. That’s one up on the traditional sun visor that often obscures your view and can cause people to have collisions as a result. According to research by the AA one in 50 accidents are due to glare from the sun as people drive, so its development is welcome news indeed.

Throwing shade

The Virtual Visor is actually a combination of ideas and technology. The transparent LCD panel is the main element, but there’s also a camera that intuitively monitors the driver and passenger too. Bosch revealed to TechRadar at CES that this tech duo then uses computing power to solve the glare issue by calling upon intelligent algorithms to adjust the visor and its glare-busting powers dynamically as it identifies shadows on the face of the driver.

The core of the system uses AI to work out the landmarks on the face such as the eyes, nose and mouth in a sort of scanning process that, in turn, uses those algorithms to work out the driver’s eye view.

Once it’s done that, the Virtual Visor gets adjusted to darken only the areas of the screen that are hitting the driver’s eyes. The big bonus in that respect is that the rest of the visor remains transparent. And that, of course, means you don't get an obscured view of the road ahead.

“We discovered early in the development that users adjust their traditional sun visors to always cast a shadow on their own eyes,” said Jason Zink, technical expert for Bosch in North America and one of the co-creators of the Virtual Visor. “This realisation was profound in helping simplify the product concept and fuel the design of the technology.”

One man's trash...

Rather bizarrely, it sounds like this particular innovation was initially developed using leftover tech. One that its creators reckoned could provide them with a starting block to build on. “Like many early-stage ideas, we were working with limited capital and resources,” said Zink. “The original prototype, we used to first pitch the concept, was made from an old LCD monitor we recovered from a recycling bin.”

A group of three powertrain engineers, led by Zink, developed the idea for Virtual Visor and subsequently created prototypes in their free time in order to secure internal funding for the project concept. And, according to the team, it seems that the creative use of liquid crystal technology that can be used to block specific light sources might as well come from a recycled LCD screen as anywhere else. From those humble beginnings the team might actually have come up with a really practical solution to an age-old problem.

TechRadar got a chance to see the Virtual Visor at CES and it seems like a very welcome innovation that could, with some refinements, become a real thing. The idea certainly seems to have got the backing of those who have experienced it, with the Virtual Visor picking up an honorary Best of Innovation in the CES 2020 Innovation Awards as well as a Best of Innovation for the In-Vehicle Entertainment & Safety category accolade.

Admittedly the Bosch Virtual Visor is still a physical thing that’s there hanging from the roof of your car, but it’s definitely a step forwards and far more efficient. “For most drivers around the world, the visor component as we know it is not enough to avoid hazardous sun glare – especially at dawn and dusk when the sun can greatly decrease drivers’ vision,” said Dr Steffen Berns, president of Bosch Car Multimedia.

“Some of the simplest innovations make the greatest impact, and Virtual Visor changes the way drivers see the road.” 

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I’ve been predicting an increase in screen size (and the number of screens) in cars for years. It matches up with the trend to automate more, provide more information to the driver, and eventually take over the driving entirely (known in the industry as Level Four automation).

Not only will we need more information about what is happening in the car, but we will eventually need those extra screens to do work in the car while we drive, watch movies, talk on a Skype call, or find other ways to communicate and entertain ourselves.

That’s why I was so impressed with the 11.6-inch screen in the 2020 Subaru Legacy Outback. I tested one recently for a week and kept noticing the expansive screen. It was mostly helpful because once I connected my iPhone 11 Pro and activated Apple CarPlay, there was still room at the top of the screen and below for other features and functions.

For example, at the top I was able to swipe through several summary screens, one showing my currently selected audio stream. This is more important than you might think, because I don’t always use my phone for music playback and sometimes listen to the radio. Yet, in most cars, once CarPlay takes up the whole screen, you can’t adjust anything else.

Below the main CarPlay screen, there was also room for the climate controls. Again, as these features are now so often available only on the screen (and not a physical button), it makes it easier to enable the seat heater or raise the temperature. (The Legacy does technically have dedicated buttons for the temp but it’s amazing how I tend to ignore those now.)

At 11.6 inches, the new screen is roughly the size of the expansive screen on the latest RAM trucks and is inching closer (literally and figuratively) the 17-inch screen on a Tesla Model S.

Autonomy and entertainment

So what comes next? I imagine a day coming soon when there is a second or even a third large tablet-sized screen in cars. For example, it’s just a matter of time before there’s a landscape orientation screen meant for the passenger, who can play a movie or hold a video call while you drive (or even when you hand off control to the car).

I’m a little surprised we haven’t seen this already, although I’m sure it's a major cost issue. And, there are issues with distracted driving for now since no car on the road today is fully autonomous in all conditions.

However, even then, the Subaru Legacy Touring does have quite a few automated features. I tested the EyeSight Driver Assist features which can automate the steering for you (even if you do need to keep your hands on the wheel).

Essentially, the car keeps you centered in the lane even around corners, so it matches up nicely with the big screen that we will rely on more and more. Many of the settings for EyeSight are found in the 11.6-inch screen which makes them easier to find and use, as opposed to the smaller screen above the steering wheel.

I could see the screens increasing in size more and more, and cars adding more screens as we become more accustomed to being less actively engaged with driving.

On The Road is TechRadar's regular look at the futuristic tech in today's hottest cars. John Brandon, a journalist who's been writing about cars for 12 years, puts a new car and its cutting-edge tech through the paces every week. One goal: To find out which new technologies will lead us to fully self-driving cars.

The beauty of Google Assistant is being able to control an Android device without having to touch it. It's a concept that's perfectly suited to driving, and Google Assistant integrates neatly with Android Auto for voice-driven in-car control. Or at least that's the idea.

According to a Google Assistant user who got in touch with Android Police, the digital assistant has developed a strange habit of turning a deaf ear to commands. Queries that are put to it go unanswered, and there are numerous complaints along the same lines from others in Google's support forums.

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What's particularly strange is the fact that Google Assistant hears and understands what's being said; it's just not responding appropriately – or at all. 

A quick check of Google's My Activity page shows that commands and questions issued to Assistant have been transcribed and processed.

Some users complain that Google Assistant responds to some commands but not all, while others say that everything is being ignored. There are also some people complaining of a 'double beep' problem when they press the microphone or 'Speak' button in their car.

The sound of silence

The problems have proved more widespread for those who are participating in Google's beta programs, but they're also present in stable builds. Google has acknowledged the issue, but it is not clear when a fix will be made available.

In the meantime, some people have found that clearing the cache for the Google app can help (head to Settings > Apps & notifications > Google > Storage > Clear cache), but this seems to only be a temporary solution. We'll let you know when Google releases an official fix.

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Concept cars are always a good bet if you’re a trying to drum up a bit of attention and get the crowds flocking to your booth. And, at Tokyo Motor Show this year there were plenty of them vying for pole position.

But while many of these weird and wonderful visions of the future are nothing more than designer dreams, Nissan was showcasing its Ariya Concept, which is actually a lot more developed than just being a funky creation on wheels. This is a car that could actually happen.

In fact, Nissan had two new concepts on display at the show, with the Ariya being presented alongside the IMk. This dinky little all-electric offering draws its main inspiration from the tiny Kei cars that proliferate Japan’s packed inner city streets, but adds a whole lot more inside the bijou box design.

While the shag pile carpet might not be for everyone, the IMk looks undeniably cool and would sit nicely at the compact end of the growing EV marketplace. The car is designed with Japan firmly in mind, and its main purpose would be for shorter journeys. Simple, but effective.

While the Nissan IMk remains a pure concept for the time being, its larger relative the Ariya, suggested company executives, is in a much more advanced stage of development. A crossover EV, which is set to feature twin electric motors, the imaginative new model has evolved from the Nissan IMx concept that debuted in Tokyo back in 2017.

The Ariya Concept revolves around the core values of Nissan’s Intelligent Mobility thinking. As a result it would feature a host of new and improved technology with Nissan’s ProPilot 2.0 sitting at the heart of it all.

The beefed up package of driver aids would include the ability to enjoy hands-off highway driving, complementing Nissan’s already handy Door to Door Navigation. The much more sophisticated navigation system would benefit from a raft of cameras and sensors that cover a full 360 degrees around the car.

Meanwhile, your smartphone is meant as a key piece of the controls puzzle. For example, getting the car ready for your departure with seat position and heater controls adjusted before you’ve even got in could be carried out using your handset. There’s a party trick thrown in for good measure too. ProPilot Remote Park lets the car park itself once you’ve got out. Pretty useful if you’ve found a particularly tight space that makes getting out of the car itself nigh on impossible.

A celebration of Japanese design

Alfonso Albaisa, Nissan’s senior vice president of global design seemed particularly excited about the car as he stood in front of it. He explained that both the exterior and interior are meant to celebrate the Ariya’s Japanese DNA. It’s definitely got more attitude than the similarly-sized X-Trail for example.

The striking front end is dominated by the traditional grille-replacing ‘shield’, which instead of being a conventional affair hides a lot of the tech that makes the car tick including Lidar. Another high point, quite literally, is the way the interior can accommodate even the tallest of occupants, despite the fact that the Ariya has its batteries in the flat floorpan.

Based on what you can see from Nissan’s images, once you’re sitting inside that Japanese influence is obvious, while less immediately spotted aspects such as seats with thinner frames means that the car should feel roomier.

It’s all Japanese minimalism too, with a 12.3-inch display monitor that features haptic controls offering a definite air of less-is-more for occupants.

And, if you want a premium feel then you should get that too from the seat coverings, door trims and natural wood flourishes that deliver an almost living-room-on-wheels experience.

The Ariya Concept sounds like it might have performance to match those dynamic looks too, with CHAdeMO quick charging via a port at the back of the front wing a la the Audi e-tron. Dual front and rear electric motors should promise lots of torque and Nissan executives hinted that its capabilities could be boosted with handling tweaks pulled in from the inspirational and legendary GTR. Concrete facts and figures on the eventual specification are pending, but the Ariya does sound like it could be a very exciting prospect to drive.

Wild looks

It isn't just Nissan that has been busy on the design front though as several other flamboyant concept vehicles dominated the Tokyo Motor Show floorspace. Toyota unveiled its mad-looking e-Racer concept, along with the similarly zany LQ.

Meanwhile, Lexus also had a solid pop at creativity with the outlandishly OTT design lines of its LF-30. Next to that the Mercedes-EQ looked mild by comparison. Meanwhile, Mitsubishi had a pretty wild concept offering in the shape of a plug-in hybrid SUV called the Mi-Tech.

Elsewhere, the rather likeable Hanare from Suzuki brought the living room on wheels theme back to life and this oddball creation doesn't get hindered by the sort of silly accoutrements you get in regular cars. In the case of the Harare that includes a lack of steering wheel and driver’s seat. Whether or not you’d actually ever see one on the road remains to be seen, but unlike the Ariya that's concepts for you.

Suzuki also had another bright idea on its booth – the shapeshifting Waku SPO two-seater PHEV that can morph into a pick-up or van. Its less radical Hustler looked modest close by as it draws inspiration from existing Kei cars.

Away from pure concepts, Mazda took the covers of its first proper EV in the shape of the MX-30, which is far more sensible. That’s not to forget the loveable and out soon Honda-e too of course, which made the revised and hugely practical Jazz look slightly tired by comparison.

So then, lots of EVs, and one or two concepts that might actually make it into production…

• EVs explained: everything you need to know about electric vehicles

The idea of technology making life easier and simpler is sometimes a lost art. Over the last few decades, we’ve witnessed an explosion of new tech features, settings on our phones, laptops with extra screens, widgets and apps that can do everything... and nothing.

It’s overwhelming because innovation has reached a fever pitch. In the modern home, the front door, back door, side door, windows, lamps, thermostat, and everything in between are connected, so it can become a full-time job monitoring everything.

That’s why I like a simple new feature on the 2019 Nissan Kicks. On some cars, the tire pressure warning system is designed to annoy you. A small icon appears but there’s no information about how low the tire really is or which one needs air. It’s also merely a warning, so it doesn’t help you solve the problem. On many cars, the icon is also a bit cryptic.

On the Kicks, if you see visually that a tire is low or suspect there is a tire pressure issue, you can go to a gas station and start filling a little. The Kicks will sound the horn when you have filled up the tire enough. No extra warnings, no need to read the tire pressure level (which at most gas stations is not possible anyway), and no need to use a tire pressure gauge.

What I liked about this is that it’s a feature designed for overwhelmed drivers. Easy-Fill Tire Alert is a nod to how people actually solve problems in the real world, and it’s a sign of how things will work in the near future on all cars. I noticed a similar change with Apple CarPlay recently, adding panels to the display rather than a row of icons to help drivers access features faster.

The art of simplicity

In the future, we’ll be summoning our cars from across town, making commands by voice to start the engine or roll down the windows, and asking a bot for analytics data about how we drive and how we could take different routes. I don’t mean this is coming within 10 years – these features are imminent. You can already summon a Telsa Model S in a parking lot.

The problem is in knowing what you can do and can’t do, and little things like tire pressure just add to the confusion. I know of drivers who get a little freaked out when the tire pressure icon appears on the dash – now imagine what will happen when they say the wrong thing to a car.

The solution is to make the technology do the hard work and to understand what the driver really needs, to parse out any extraneous information. Artificial intelligence in its best form only provides the help we need; in its worst form, it is distracting and exists to annoy us.

As humans, we shouldn't be in the role of constant monitoring. Many of us use our phones in a predictable pattern each day (and multiple times per day). We check Facebook, we check email, we check Twitter, we check for new texts. In a car, extra features are not only distracting and could cause an accident, it also leads to more stress and confusion for the driver.

What’s an example of solving this problem? Eventually, voice commands will expand far beyond controlling the radio. We’ll ask the car about diagnostic info, and when it comes to making repairs ourselves, the car might walk us through that (so more than just a beep). More than anything, the bots in a car will hopefully fix problems, drive the car more efficiently, and in general, stay out of our way so we can enjoy a summer day. That’s the real goal.

On The Road is TechRadar's regular look at the futuristic tech in today's hottest cars. John Brandon, a journalist who's been writing about cars for 12 years, puts a new car and its cutting-edge tech through the paces every week. One goal: To find out which new technologies will lead us to fully self-driving cars.

Nissan is keeping things nice and simple with the brand new Juke. There are just two model variants, both sharing what seems like a tiny engine for the size of the car. You can buy it with the one-liter DiG-T 117 horsepower six-speed manual gearbox or plump for a DCT automatic model with the same three-cylinder engine. That’s it. (Note that sadly the Juke is no longer available in the US.)

While the trim options are many and varied, the refreshingly straightforward powertrain options are welcome. You still get to give your Juke a bit of zing with those interior choices though thanks to Visia, Acenta, N-Connecta and Tekna packages to choose from. There are also eleven new exterior colours and two-tone paint comes as standard. Sign up for a Tekna+ model and you’ll get chunky 19-inch alloys into the bargain.

Considering its size – it’s a smidgen longer than the outgoing model – the new Nissan Juke looks like it has the potential to be underpowered. But, while it’s only got that 999cc three-cylinder turbocharged engine, it’s much better than you might think. Way better than the older bigger-engined car in fact. We got to try our premium specification model Juke on city streets and mountain roads and, generally, it was pretty punchy.

Pleasingly agile

The handling feels pleasingly agile as you wend your way through busy city streets with our automatic edition having the benefit of Nissan’s ProPilot driving assist. That doesn't come with the manual incidentally. Hit the highway though, and you notice the steering become heavier when Sport mode is selected, done via a button down by the shifter. The automatic model we drove also featured the big 19-inch alloys too, which delivered an even loftier view from the accommodating interior.

Heading up steep and tortuously winding mountain roads was interesting, in a good way. If you switch the automatic gearbox to flappy paddle mode the Juke struggles a bit with all the activity as you flick through the numbers. Once you get the hang of it though the automatic is quite a lot of fun.

And, naturally, in full auto mode the driving experience is simplicity itself. That turbo delivers some extra puff when needed too, especially when you want to get past a rather more sedate fellow motorist.

Meanwhile, there’s quite a lot to like on the inside of the Juke, with a snazzy interior that features lots of quality materials, particularly in the premium Tekna+ offering. Ours had very lively Energy Orange accents on the dashboard, door panels and armrest, which we got to like the more we drove the car.

The ambient lighting around the gear lever looks good too. There are other cool styling touches, with an arrangement of bulbous vents proving irresistible to the touch. The front seats are also a very nice part of the package with our model feeling super comfy and all-enveloping. A leather steering wheel tops it off. 

Tech upgrade

But it’s the tech aspect that has been also been upgraded with Juke two. Opt for the higher-specification if you can and get the eight-speaker Bose Personal Plus audio system, which is standard from the Tekna model upwards.

Our car had it and the sound was decidedly muscular with two sets of Bose ultra-nearfield speakers incorporated into the front seat headrests. You can access controls for these via the seven-inch infotainment screen and, along with boosting bass and treble, it’s possible to make them deliver 360-degree hi-fi to everyone inside the car.

The infotainment system is also very decent. There’s Apple CarPlay and Android Auto plus TomTom Maps and LiveTraffic. Nissan says that early in 2020 the Juke will also feature in-car Wi-Fi.

As is the norm, there’s also a supporting app that lets you keep tabs on your pride and joy, as well as being able to track your journey history and so on. 

However, it’s worth noting that while a base level Visia model starts at £17,395 (about $22,000, AU$32,000) you’ll pay over £25,000 (about $32,000, AU$47,000) for the bells and whistles Tekna+ or Premiere Edition cars. And, as a result, there are compromises on the lower-end editions, including the fact that Visia and Acenta models only get a 4.2-inch TFT as opposed to the seven-inch screen in the pricier cars. If you like lots of screen real estate you’ll need to pay extra for it.

Smart assistance

Nissan has packed lots of safety functionality into the new Juke too, with the likes of intelligent emergency braking featuring pedestrian and cyclist recognition proving handy around town.

We found it quite keen to get involved on our model, even when there wasn’t anything to get too worried about. Nevertheless, it’s a valuable commodity to have on tap. Intelligent lane intervention and warnings are similarly useful if you enjoy the feeling of a bit smart assistance while you drive down the motorway.

Models with the better Tekna specification get additional tech treats, including intelligent cruise control, the aforementioned ProPilot on the automatic along with blind spot intervention, rear cross-traffic alert and the rather good Around View Monitor that delivers universal views of your Juke thanks to a 360-degree camera, plus more besides.

We should just mention the trunk because thanks to some deft restyling, which splits the taillights, there’s a wider opening. That means you get 422 litres of space to play with and easier loading. It’s impressive. The rear seats feel a little bit roomier, with some fine-tuning allowing greater headroom and definitely more space for those with long legs. All in all, and including the extra trimmings, the Juke feels like a solid package.

There won’t, unsurprisingly, be a diesel but the new manual Nissan Juke delivers around 45-47mpg, which is respectable though you’ll doubtless get less with the auto version. There’s every reason to feel that it could do at least as well as the original goofball Juke and, perhaps, even better. Not bad for an original idea that’s been around for a decade or so and got the ball rolling for the whole supermini crossover brigade.

• Everything you need to know about electric vehicles

In the future, as automotive technology advances, sensors will be everywhere. Bridges will know when you pass underneath, side lane markings will be equipped with 5G-enabled sensors that communicate with your vehicle and know when you’re drifting, and the car behind you will be able to detect your bumper even from miles away.

This type of sensor activity isn't viable today, mostly because the infrastructure itself isn't online in most cities (unless you count places like Las Vegas), or the sensors themselves are too expensive.

However, a redesigned pickup from RAM Trucks – namely, the 2019 RAM 1500 I tested for a week, which has a base price of $31,895 (about £26,000, AU$18,000) – comes equipped with a unique blind-spot monitoring system that provides a hint for how all of this will work in the future.

Hidden dangers

Blind spot monitoring isn't a new invention, and has been around a while. I’ve tested cars all the way back to about 2009 that used sensors to tell if someone is in the next lane over. It’s called blind spot monitoring because the car you are driving partially obscures cars next to you. It’s so common that I’m surprised when a vehicle doesn’t have the option available.

In the RAM 1500, it works a bit differently. If you're towing a trailer or a yacht, the sensors can scan all the way back behind you and spot an oncoming vehicle in the next lane. (By the way, the feature itself has a long name, it’s called Blind Spot Monitoring with Rear Cross Path and Trailer Detection.)

I really like how it works, because you don’t have to do anything. The sensors automatically detect an attached trailer or boat and scan farther behind you.

In my tests, the blindspot monitoring worked flawlessly. In a truck, it’s helpful because you can’t always see behind you or in the next lane. I’ve tested other trucks and I’ve never seen the capability to scan beyond the truck itself. If you are towing an RV camper that blocks your field of view so that you can’t see the next lane, the extended sensors help even more.

Communicating with the road

In the future, sensors will know much more than whether you have a yacht in tow and that there’s an Audi A5 creeping on next to you. The Audi will also communicate its location to you and you’ll see an alert if you try to change lanes. And, let’s say you are approaching an area where there is a divider in the road, which seems to happen quite a bit. The curb itself will communicate with your truck and let you know to avoid that part of the road.

With autonomous cars, this will all happen in real-time and the vehicles will all know about each other, the roadway, and any impediments along the way. We’re closer to this than you might think – in Las Vegas, for example, the stop lights can communicate with the car and warn you about a red light. I’ve tested this in an autonomous car and, once you experience it, it makes perfect sense and it’s hard to imagine driving without those connections.

For now, I like the sensors in the RAM 1500. It’s a stop-gap measure for current driving technology that will pave the way to more sensors to help us drive safer.

On The Road is TechRadar's regular look at the futuristic tech in today's hottest cars. John Brandon, a journalist who's been writing about cars for 12 years, puts a new car and its cutting-edge tech through the paces every week. One goal: To find out which new technologies will lead us to fully self-driving cars.

The interface available in cars will dictate the future of driving. The more intuitive the controls, the easier we can navigate through menus, and the more fluidly we can find autonomous driving features, the more we can focus on other tasks – like drinking a cup of coffee or testing.

In a recent test of a 2019 Mercedes-AMG CLS 53, two Touch Control buttons, as they're called, made driving more enjoyable. I was able to easily move my left thumb over to the 'magic' button on my left to control the gauge cluster (the display above the steering wheel) and them use my right thumb to tap and scroll through menus for the main center console.

It’s a bit like controlling an Apple iPad. If you’ve used one, you know it is all about the thumbs. You hold the device with your fingers and tap icons and swipe menus with your thumbs. (That is, unless you’re my wife who prefers to use the tips of her index fingers.) In interface design, the reference points we use for how we control and interface are super critical. 

A poorly designed interface is one that's awkward to control – you have to bend your fingers around a screen or perform some action that feels unnatural. I discovered this while car shopping recently – the person who designed a Honda Element (now defunct, but possibly coming back) likely never dropped his or her kids off at school. To jump out of the backseat, you have to open the main door first. It’s a terrible (ie confusing) design.

My issue with poorly designed interfaces is that – someday soon, or at least in the next 20-30 years, we will rely on interfaces to control all driving, perhaps even in cars without a steering wheel, brakes, or an accelerator. Cars will need to be as intuitive as an iPad.

Controls that 'just work'

In the CLS 53, the thumb controls feel natural, obvious, and well-positioned. I didn’t even have to think about what to do. In the main gauge display, you swipe right to control the left-most display, then swipe up and down to scroll through the menus. If it was any easier then Mercedes would probably have to pay royalties to Apple.

When I used the right Touch Control button for the center console display, I flipped through settings for the car itself (hello, audio surround sound control) and even found the control button to work well for Apple CarPlay.

To compare these buttons a bit to other interface controls – they 'just work' and feel natural. Too often, the interface control on some modern cars feels to jerky and abrupt. The cursor jumps around from one setting to another. On the CLS 53, you slide the touch-sensitive button, so you have full control over how fast the cursor moves.

This is more important than you might think. On many commutes to an office, driving on a side roads through the country, and on a highway in stop-and-go traffic, I was able to focus on the road and barely had to look at the displays. The buttons were an extension of the steering wheel, literally like using an iPad to find configure options. I calculated the time I spent adjusting the gauges compared to other cars and figured I was spending about half the time, mostly because my hands were already resting on the steering wheel.

When we are less distracted, and the interface is more fluid, we will enjoy driving more – or we will be able to focus on other tasks as the car drives itself. I’m looking forward to that age of driving a little more now that I’ve tested a car that has better touch controls.

On The Road is TechRadar's regular look at the futuristic tech in today's hottest cars. John Brandon, a journalist who's been writing about cars for 12 years, puts a new car and its cutting-edge tech through the paces every week. One goal: To find out which new technologies will lead us to fully self-driving cars.

Several apps in the 2019 Cadillac XT4 don’t require a phone. That might be a simple departure from the norm – after all, we have our phones with us all day and it’s easy to connect over a wired connection or using Bluetooth. There’s no question a phone will be around for years.

However, the XT4 proves one point – we won’t need phones forever. On several trips over a one week period, I swiped through The Weather Channel app (which has a nicely designed interface with a five-day forecast) and didn’t bother asking Siri about any weather issues. I thought it was a handy feature although standalone weather apps are nothing new in cars.

Then I started investigating further and noticed there's a Spotify app that doesn’t require a phone. I can’t remember testing Spotify in any previous car without having to sync my phone.

Again, it's a small change – Spotify has worked for years in cars when you connect a phone and many music streaming apps work using both Apple CarPlay and Android Auto.

You also need to use Spotify Premium (which costs $9.99/£9.99/AU$11.99 per month) and sign up for the 4G LTE data subscription through GM, which costs $20 (about £16, AU$30) per month for the unlimited plan.

Other apps that don’t require a phone include the The Wall Street Journal, People Magazine, Fox Sports, USA Today, Dash Radio, The Washington Post, and NPR One.

I also liked the New York Times app, which provides a daily briefing on the news. In many countries and US states, fumbling with your phone while you drive is not allowed by law, but these apps don’t even require a phone – so they remove the temptation entirely.

Truly hands-free

However, that’s not the reason they provide a hint to the future. I’ve been suggesting for several years that phones will eventually become a quaint memorial of a golden age. “Remember when we used to have to carry around a phone?” Someday, we’ll talk to bots that are super intelligent so we can dictate emails (and have that actually work).

Screens will be everywhere (and in some ways they already are), but we’ll never miss having a phone since we'll be able to scroll and swipe at a restaurant, at work, and... in the car.

I’m even predicting a cultural shift entirely. Let’s say you are at the game with friends. Normally, we pull out a phone. The question is – why? Is it to tell all of our friends that we are more interested in a text? Someday our phones will be in an earbud that can read texts, or we’ll decide we don’t need to get a text while we watch our team lose.

That’s a lot to infer from a few apps in an XT4 crossover, but there’s a reason it makes sense to use apps in the car that use their own data connection just as there is a reason to leave the phone behind. Cars will get smarter, and so will technology. Our ability to communicate with each other will improve as well and phones will eventually become relics.

And no one knows for sure. We might all use holographic displays on our wrists, or bots implanted into our cheekbones. I like that the XT4 is moving away from such a reliance on our phones to provide the apps and the data connection. We might keep our phones stowed longer. 

On The Road is TechRadar's regular look at the futuristic tech in today's hottest cars. John Brandon, a journalist who's been writing about cars for 12 years, puts a new car and its cutting-edge tech through the paces every week. One goal: To find out which new technologies will lead us to fully self-driving cars.

When a brand new car comes along, it’s always exciting to see what new technology will pop up. In a recent test of the 2019 Volkswagen Arteon, three standout features impressed me the most – although the truth is the Arteon is surprisingly similar to the discontinued VW CC. They are both lower profile sedans with a roomy interior. Here are my top findings... 

1. The trunk opens automatically

One automotive trend that makes perfect sense has to do with automated trunks. In the Arteon, you can walk behind the vehicle with your hands full carrying groceries or soccer gear, flip your leg behind the vehicle, and the trunk will pop open. Of course, you need to have the keyfob in your pocket, which can be annoying if someone else is driving and has the key

2. The hood acts as a cushion for pedestrians

The hood technology in the Arteon is surprisingly similar to what you will find in the Buick Regal GS. (I wrote about this recently and explained how the tech works.) The idea is that, in an accident, if someone is in front of the car, the hood will deploy using pyrotechnics in the hinges to soften the fall. It happens in a split second but could save a live.

3. The rear view camera pops out of the logo

This one is a bit of a technical wonder. As most cars use back-up cameras these days, they are becoming standard and even a bit boring. On the Arteon, the camera pokes out of the VW logo, which you also grab onto to open the trunk and pull. I’ve come to the point where I use the back-up camera on cars as much as the rear view mirror and wide mirrors.

4. You’ll get a warning if you leave the sunroof open

The Arteon continues the trend VW started in other models using the app to warn you about a potential disaster. If there’s rain in the forecast and you leave the sunroof open, the Car-Net app will notify you about the problem. We’ll have to wait for a future model that allows you to also close the sunroof using the app (that will require a seperate power source most likely).

5. The car can park itself

The Arteon has a feature called Park Assist that can search for a parking spot and then automatically turn the steering wheel for you to assist with parking. It’s handy for people who are not great at parallel parking, although I’ve always found it is faster to park myself. I do like that the Arteon sensors can tell if the parking spot is big enough for the car.

6. The ambient lighting is actually ambient

I noticed with the Arteon that you can change the interior color, and the hues they picked are surprisingly soft and subtle. Interior lighting is customizable in many other models, particularly from Ford, but sometimes the colors are a bit harsh or annoying. 

On The Road is TechRadar's regular look at the futuristic tech in today's hottest cars. John Brandon, a journalist who's been writing about cars for 12 years, puts a new car and its cutting-edge tech through the paces every week. One goal: To find out which new technologies will lead us to fully self-driving cars.

I knew something was up when my leaf blower triggered an alarm on a 2019 Jeep Cherokee. I was driving the rugged four-wheel-drive crossover into my garage, and passed a hair too close to the battery-powered lawn implement.

If you've ever driven a brand new car that doesn’t have a scratch on it, especially one with a base price of $25,740 (about £20,600, AU$36,500), you know it’s a bit scary to brush up against another car, a bike, or even a leaf blower.

The sensors are all around the vehicle (you can see them on the bumpers, for example) and are definitely not new. I recall testing cars seven or eight years ago with similar sensors that can monitor the proximity of other objects, including people and garage items. What I don’t recall is this level of sensitivity, which is adjustable on most vehicles including the Cherokee. No car has ever warned me about being too close to a leaf blower.

In another garage incident, I pulled in too close to a kid’s bike. The sensors warn you with chimes but also show a large image of the car in the instrument cluster above the steering wheel and bright yellow warning lights. They get your attention. I stopped, jumped out, moved the bike just in case, and pulled in. I won’t say it’s actual artificial intelligence – it’s just a sensor that sends out a signal and can tell when something is too close.

The reason this is more important than ever, though, is that the sensor tech in cars is now much more affordable. I imagine every production car will provide proximity sensors like the ones in the Cherokee soon. I know the LIDAR sensors used for self-driving cars from a company called Luminar cost around $500 (about £400/AU$700), which is far cheaper than anything we’ve seen before.

A sense of the future

There’s something to be said for public perception about automated tech in cars as well. I now expect a car to have proximity sensors, blind spot monitoring, and adaptive cruise, but most drivers these days are still adjusting to back-up cameras.

Most American drivers do not drive a different test car each week like me (sarcasm alert) or even buy a new car once every few years. Cars last much longer, and drivers are not purchasing as many new cars.

Sensors like the ones in the Cherokee will help. In everyday driving situations – at the mall, to church, with kids in the back – I now expect to hear the chimes and see the alerts in every car and I’m surprised when a vehicle doesn’t warn me.

In the future, sensors will become more common not just on the cars we drive but on everything else. The garage will communicate with the car as well, and the bikes and leaf blowers might even be connected to a sensor network someday so that we always know about any impediment or obstruction (or, I should say – the gadgets will know).

That’s when AI will come in handy, not just warning us in the moment about problems but warning us far ahead of time. “John, there’s a bike blocking the garage stall” is a message I’d like to receive, and maybe not even in the car but on my phone before I ever drive anywhere. Apply this sensor tech and network concept to autonomous cars, with an AI that knows which routes to take, any accidents on the road and other delays.

Then go much further and provide richer information – such as real-time and incredibly accurate traffic maps. I’m picturing an AI-controlled sensor net that makes driving much smoother and faster.

Whether that means a Terminator-like overlord is a question for another day...

On The Road is TechRadar's regular look at the futuristic tech in today's hottest cars. John Brandon, a journalist who's been writing about cars for 12 years, puts a new car and its cutting-edge tech through the paces every week. One goal: To find out which new technologies will lead us to fully self-driving cars.

UPDATE: Google has reached out to Android Police (the site that broke the original story) to clarify that the Android Auto update isn't officially live yet, but is still planned for release this [US] summer. Original story below.

Revealed last month at Google's IO 2019, a refreshed interface for the search giant's car-connected Android Auto platform has started rolling out to users from today, as reported by Android Police.

According to Google's original announcement, the latest Android Auto release is "built to help you get on the road faster, show more useful information at a glance and simplify common tasks while driving."

• Android Auto: Google's head unit for cars explained
• Android Auto supports wireless, as long as you've got the right phone
• Pros and cons to using Android Auto on a 2019 Honda Passport

Going through changes

With regards to getting you on the road quicker, Android Auto will now automatically continue playing your media when you turn on your vehicle and immediately launch your chosen navigation app. From here, users can either tap on a suggested destination or issue a voice command.

Android Auto's navigation bar has also been simplified, meaning users should be able to control their apps with less taps while also having the ability to control media, receive incoming calls and turn-by-turn directions from the same screen.

Perhaps the most exciting aspect of Android Auto's interface refresh however, is the inclusion of a new dark mode, which should make driving at night a whole lot easier on the eyes. Google says the new dark theme is complemented by easier to read fonts and and more colorful accents for improved visibility.

Additionally, the new Android Auto UI is said to make it easier to manage calls, messages and alerts thanks to an updated notification center, and has also been optimized to show more information on wider displays. You can check out the new-look Android Auto interface for yourself in the video below.

• Toyota finally brings Android Auto to select cars and trucks

Camping in a tent is fun, but there’s a downside when the weather takes a turn for the worse, mainly because you're on the ground. Ford’s foray into the world of camper vans is therefore a great alternative to bedding down for the night on a soggy groundsheet.

And, boy, have campers come a long way in recent years. Gone are the days where you’d see dodgy homegrown conversions pootling down the A303 on the way to Devon or Cornwall belching out black smoke. Today’s motorhome is a thing of real beauty, particularly when it comes in a fun and funky metallic colour like the one TechRadar has just experienced first-hand.

While modern day campers are still, in essence, the same panel vans used by delivery drivers and builders, they’re nothing like those horrible old conversions that also featured interior walls fashioned from marine ply and worktops laminated with Formica.

In the case of Ford’s Nugget, the camper is based on its evergreen Transit Custom platform, which continues to get better with age. With that rock-solid foundation the camper side of things takes shape via a collaboration with Westfalia, the motorhome meisters who basically wrote the rulebook on how to create a decent camper.

Home comforts

There are variations on the Nugget theme too, with a long wheelbase version offering additional space for a toilet if you're averse to taking a trip to the block in the middle of your campsite. The one we tried was the standard wheelbase edition, so it arrived sans chemical toilet.

Ours also featured a folding roof, which hinges up at the front end to produce a double bed area over the, er, lounge. The seats in this area also convert to make another snug double-sleeping arrangement, so it’s perfect for an average family. If you’ve got more offspring then the long-wheelbase Nugget Plus model might be the way forward.

Access to that top ‘bedroom’ is via a nifty little aluminium ladder that stows away in a cupboard if you need to spend time in the rear kitchen portion of the van. This area of the Nugget is where the real magic happens as a series of very nicely designed and built cupboards and cubbyholes reveal all sorts of handy items.

Up on the worktop there’s a cooking hob and next to that there’s a circular sink with hot and cold water on tap. Granted, you’ll bump your head occasionally and catch your shoulder on the carefully crafted fixtures and fittings, but it’s not a bad space for cooking a spaghetti bolognese or, perhaps, a minor league full English for breakfast.

Cheesy living

To the left of the stove there’s a lift-up lid that reveals a deceptively deep 40-litre compressor fridge that, in our example, was chock full of chilled drinks, cold meats and an incredibly pungent disc of Camembert.

Anyone on our campsite with a penchant for ripe soft cheese was curiously drawn to the Nugget while smacking their lips in eager anticipation while posing questions like ‘Can I look inside?’ or ‘How much does it cost?’ By the end of the weekend though we were finding it difficult to get the impregnated odour of said cheese off our clothes. And we love cheese.

So sure, the Nugget is quite cosy and holds on to smells a bit, but if you’re travelling with family then that’ll probably be nothing worse than you’re used to normally. Elsewhere, there’s plenty of storage for cutlery, plates, clothes and the array of different gear that you’ll need once you’re enjoying the great outdoors.

Ford seemed to think it was prudent to provide us with plenty of towels in our vehicle, which was sensible even if they were tucked away in a cupboard next to a solitary toilet roll, some crisps and a large sausage. But this curious combination did underline the undeniably practical edge of the interior layout if nothing else.

Assistance and entertainment

Yep, Ford’s Nugget is a likeable thing when it’s parked up on site. But, it’s also very driveable. Everyone we spoke to who’d spent a few hours motoring down the highway in France seemed to be in universal agreement on that point. The 2.0-litre EcoBlue diesel mated to a six-speed manual gearbox makes the version we had more of a cruiser than a speed demon.

There’s also a six-speed SelectShift automatic gearbox on offer too. Meanwhile, the driving experience is made better by a raft of driver assistance technology, including Cross Traffic Alert, the oddly named Pre-Collision Assist with Pedestrian Detection, plus adaptive cruise control and a rear wide-view camera for parking the van in those tight campsite locations.

Ford has crammed in plenty of boredom-busting tech to keep people happy too and there’s as much on offer as most family saloons get these days. Ford’s SYNC 3 connectivity and entertainment system packs enough appeal to keep most people interested in a long haul down the highway. Plus, it also has the capacity to be controlled using voice commands or via the eight-inch touchscreen.

SYNC 3 is compatible with Apple CarPlay and Android Auto for good measure. Another neat touch in the main cabin area is the way the front seats can be swiveled 180 degrees for when you’re parked up (a process speeded up by a folding handbrake).

We also liked the sound system in our Ford Nugget, which seemed pretty good at pumping out tunes while we pulled the (vinyl) curtains and got the upstairs bed made up. Getting into the upper deck required a little practice and we’re not sure what the experience would be like for anyone really tall.

However, once you’re into the roof space it’s certainly accomodating and pretty comfortable. There's a pair of reading lights on stalks up there too if you’ve got a good book to finish before bed. If you’re a light sleeper though this fold up roof does have a minor drawback in that it’s sides are made of synthetic tent-like material, so outside noise travels through it. Similarly, heavy snorers will be audible and, naturally, very annoying to fellow campers.

Out back there’s a rack where you can secure your mountain bike. This can be moved aside to let you gain access from the rear of the motorhome via a lift up tailgate. There is also, apparently, an outdoor shower available on some options of the Nugget although we didn't see any evidence of that on our model.

But we were spoilt in any case thanks to a surprisingly decent shower block a stone’s throw away. Fresh and waste water, incidentally, is supplied and subsequently contained in on-board tanks that both have a generous 42-liter capacity.

Fuel frugal

Despite the added weight of all these fixtures and fittings, the Nugget is economical too, with that frugal diesel delivering trouble-free motoring and seemingly using only a few sips of fuel over a reasonably long distance. Diesel might be getting a bad rap currently but the latest Ford engines are up there with the best of them.

Unfortunately nobody could seem to give us any indication of actual pricing for the Nugget during the weekend we tried it. Presumably it’ll have to be competitive to prize people away from the more obvious VW motorhome route currently favoured by so many.

Of course, the other bonus with a camper van like the Ford Nugget is that there’s no tent to pack down, which can be a horrendous task when everything is soaking wet. Simply drop the roof down on the Nugget, roll the wheels off their leveling chocks and you’re ready to, um, motor home.

• Self-driving cars: your complete guide

The future of all autonomous driving will rely, at least in part, on your smartphone. There’s no question about it, because as humans, we already rely on our phones (sometimes to a degree that is quite frightening). We use them for everything, from ordering groceries to watching lame videos on TikTok (at least, if you’re under 20) or opening the front door of our homes.

That means, for autonomous cars, our phones will take center stage. Most likely, future phones will become a control center or at least the interface to controlling features, especially when we’re not in the car and need to summon it from the garage or send it on an errand.

That’s why I’m keenly interested in how both Google and Apple are working to improve their two car offerings (Android Auto and CarPlay).

Recently, Google announced a revamped version of Android Auto that will debut this summer with a new interface and more features, most of them related to making the interface on your car’s screen work more like a phone. A row of buttons along the bottom of the screen, for example, look like the icons on your phone. 

The perfect platform

To refresh my memory on how Android Auto works currently, I tested a 2019 Honda Passport. This roomy, midsize SUV is a good candidate for Android Auto testing because it offers a bright, crisp center console screen -- one of my favorites in any vehicle. It just looks clearer and brighter than most, without that slightly 'fuzzy' screen look on older vehicles.

I also liked that I could charge one phone (a personal iPhone) on a wireless pad in the Passport while I tested a Samsung Galaxy S10+ running Android, plugged into the USB port.

I will say that I prefer Android Auto over CarPlay for one simple reason – I prefer Google for searches and voice control. I’m an avid Google Music user, and I also prefer Google Maps over Apple Maps. I’m just used to the Google ecosystem.

With Siri, there are well-known limitations. For one thing, I find that Siri often directs me to a website rather than actually answering a question. With Google, the Assistant usually has a ready answer.

What’s not as cool with Android Auto is that it uses more of a card interface. I like that Google will add more icons. CarPlay shows more obvious icons that are easier to use.

Small hiccups

On the Passport, with the Samsung Galaxy phone connected and all apps updated, I did have a few minor issues. I had signed in to the S10+ to check my email, but I skipped the step where I needed to sign in to the Assistant itself. That meant some of the voice features didn’t work, including a question about Barack Obama and playing a new album by Bastille. Once I logged in, the Assistant worked fine. (Apparently, this is a known issue.)

Another minor glitch was that long-pressing on the voice control button in the Passport worked fine for accessing the Assistant, but I had to speak to the phone itself for the best reception. I had expected the microphone in the Passport to work for that. However, when I retested later the phone didn’t have to be nearby. A Google rep is looking into the issue.

The Assistant bot won’t change this summer in the new Android Auto, but there is good news. Google recently announced the new Google Assistant driving mode, which will work over Bluetooth and allow you to access the full Assistant bot for navigation, texting, and anything else you might want to do only by voice. The bot will act more like a driving companion.

I like how Android Auto is progressing. In the future, we’ll rely even more on phones to help us in more advanced cars. Like a BMW I tested recently, the bots will connect into car systems for climate control and even setting your speed. We’ll enable autonomous features by voice or ask the car to take over during long drives. Let’s hope the future arrives soon.

On The Road is TechRadar's regular look at the futuristic tech in today's hottest cars. John Brandon, a journalist who's been writing about cars for 12 years, puts a new car and its cutting-edge tech through the paces every week. One goal: To find out which new technologies will lead us to fully self-driving cars.  

Toyota has announced a set of new automated goodies that will make its cars greener and safer in future.

From 2020 onwards, all new Toyota models will be kitted out with automatic parking, which kicks in if you get out without putting the car in park. At the moment, the company's cars give visual warnings and beep alarmingly if you hop out without parking properly, but in future they'll also put the parking brake on for you, and/or shift the car into the 'park' position.

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This might not sound like much, but it could reduce the possibility of tragic accidents where drivers are hit when their parked car rolls forward unexpectedly.

Power down

New cars will also come with automatic shutoff, which (as the name suggests) will turn off the engine if it's left idling for a long time.

Again, Toyota's vehicles already alert the driver if the engine needs to be turned off, but the updated system will make it even more obvious, and do the deed for you if you don't turn the key soon enough. There'll even be a smartphone app to warn you if you've been particularly forgetful.

• Toyota showrooms use augmented reality to let customers 'see' inside cars

Via Engadget

I rarely get a chance to test collision detection on any car, and for good reason. If the condition ever comes up, it’s usually stressful and even avoidable. Normally, if you stay far away from the cars in front of you on the highway, from example, you won’t have to brake suddenly. And if you pay attention at all times, you can react quickly without any help.

That was a nice theory up until this last week when I was driving the 2019 Genesis G70, a smart and stylish luxury sedan. It wasn’t an overly tense situation – just normal highway driving with a lot of cars. However, I did have one instance where the G70 noticed a stoppage in front of me and decided to not only apply the brakes but to swerve to the right a little.

When this happens in other cars with advanced tech, the feeling is exactly like a robot has taken over the driving for you. The brakes work independently of your own feet, the steering went into fully automated mode.

In terms of autonomous driving, this is exactly what you want – the G70 had a mind of its own, and that’s a good thing because my mind was not fully capable of avoiding a problem. Robotic driving isn’t just a convenience. Once you have experienced collision detection and mitigation first hand, you start to understand the future of all driving will be computerized.

Taking charge

Interestingly, what really happened is that I didn’t quite understand how quickly the cars in front of me were braking. It’s a bit of an illusion on the road – we see cars and we see taillights, but we don’t see the fast rate of deceleration. A computer does. The sensors can tell that the braking in front of you is serious enough that it has to act. Algorithms wait for you to respond, but if you don’t react the car knows it has to take over or there will be an accident.

I went back to a conversation with my wife as though nothing had happened, but of course it’s impossible to know if that situation could have been dire.

Future cars will take that concept of thinking for us to another level entirely. I like how the G70 doesn’t overwhelm you with extra information, because as autonomous cars become a reality, we won’t need all of that data. What we will need is some help.

Interestingly, what really happened is that I didn’t quite understand how quickly the cars in front of me were braking. It’s a bit of an illusion on the road – we see cars and we see taillights, but we don’t see the fast rate of deceleration. A computer does. The sensors can tell that the braking in front of you is serious enough that it has to act. Algorithms wait for you to respond, but if you don’t react the car knows it has to take over or there will be an accident.

I went back to a conversation with my wife as though nothing had happened, but of course it’s impossible to know if that situation could have been dire.

Future cars will take that concept of thinking for us to another level entirely. I like how the G70 doesn’t overwhelm you with extra information, because as autonomous cars become a reality, we won’t need all of that data. What we will need is some help.

Intervention and augmentation

Someday, cars will know way more than we can possibly ever ascertain. I was thinking about this situation specifically. For one, the car will connect to the local infrastructure, and the road itself will report back on the location of every other car, including the one that over-braked. 

Curiously, these calculations will occur in real-time and take into account the weather conditions, the speed of traffic, the previous accidents in this area, the state of the drivers operating the other cars, plus hundreds more factors, and all in a few seconds, all without our knowledge.

Today, it's just one G70 analyzing the conditions with sensors, but in the future the data will be far more robust and, in the end, we’ll be far safer.

There’s some debate about whether we want to cede control to the carbots. I will say that there is a danger about artificial intelligence thinking for us constantly, to the extent that we don’t even have to think anymore. Someday, we might need to make autonomous driving an advanced setting that requires a certification level or a certain amount of driving experience.

Where I diverge from the AI doomsayers is when I experience a situation like the one with the G70 – I couldn’t possibly pay attention at all times on every road. We want intervention and augmentation, which isn’t a bad thing. However, we should be leery of replacement that dumbs us down to the point where we won’t even know how any of this works or what the car is doing or why.

For now, I’m happy with the results. I went right back to driving in full control.

On The Road is TechRadar's regular look at the futuristic tech in today's hottest cars. John Brandon, a journalist who's been writing about cars for 12 years, puts a new car and its cutting-edge tech through the paces every week. One goal: To find out which new technologies will lead us to fully self-driving cars. 

Traditional driving may soon be viewed as archaic. There is a disruptive evolution taking place from human-steered vehicles to autonomous vehicles requiring a holistic ecosystem to spur development and create a monumental, structural transformation of a high percentage of the global economy. Still, safety remains a paramount hurdle for this ecosystem to clear before the driverless existence becomes true reality. 

More than 3,000 road crash deaths occur worldwide daily. Removing humans from the equation is one way to address this, and as a result, technology providers, Tier-1 suppliers, original equipment manufacturers (OEM), and automakers are embracing new business models and making big bets to accelerate the maturation of key autonomous driving technologies. The aim is to achieve Vision Zero, the goal of no loss of life caused by vehicles, for autonomous deployment hopes to reach their fullest potential.

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Core sensor technologies help attain higher-level vehicle autonomy 

Vehicle intelligence is typically expressed as Autonomy Levels. Levels 1 and 2 are largely warning systems, where at Level 3 and above, the vehicle can act to avoid accidents. As the vehicle advances to Level 5, the steering wheel is removed, and the car operates fully on its own. In these first few system generations, as vehicles start to take on Level 2 functionality, sensor systems operate independently. To reach fully cognitive autonomous vehicles, the number of sensors rise significantly. Their performance and response times also need to vastly improve. 

Vehicles with more external sensors can become more fully aware of their surroundings and prove safer as a result. Technologies critical in AI systems capable of navigating an autonomous vehicle include cameras, LiDAR, RADAR, microelectromechanical systems (Inertial MEMS), ultrasound and GPS. Along with supporting an autonomous vehicle’s perception and navigation systems, these sensors can better monitor mechanical conditions (i.e. tire pressure, change in weight), in addition to other maintenance factors that might affect motor functions like braking and handling.

While such sensors and sensor fusion algorithms may help achieve Vision Zero, several factors must be considered, the first of which is object classification. Current systems cannot achieve proper resolution required for object classification, but RADAR – given its micro-Doppler capabilities – is more capable in this area. Although currently a premium feature in autonomous vehicles, RADAR will become more common as the AEM (automatic emergency braking) mandate becomes a reality in the early 2020s.

LiDAR meanwhile is not a standard feature in cars today as it is not currently at the right cost or performance point to warrant broader adoption. Yet LiDAR will provide 10 times more image resolution than RADAR, which is needed to discern even more nuanced scenes. Getting to a high-quality solution –high-sensitivity with low dark current and low capacitance –is the key technology to enable the 1,500 nm LiDAR market, which may lead to its increased adoption. A key capability here is solid-state beam steering, as a high sensitivity, lower cost photodetector technology is needed to push the market to 1,500 nm. 

Camera systems – common in new vehicles today – are a cornerstone to Level 2 autonomy. However, these systems do not work well under all use-cases (i.e. night and inclement weather). Ultimately, these perception technologies are needed to provide the most comprehensive data set to the systems that are designed to keep the vehicle occupant safe.

Though often overlooked, IMUs depend upon gravity, which is constant, regardless of environmental conditions. As such, they are very useful for dead-reckoning. In the temporary absence of a GPS signal, dead-reckoning uses data from sources such as the speedometer and IMUs to detect distance traveled and direction and overlays this data onto high-definition maps. This keeps a cognitive vehicle on the right trajectory until a GPS signal can be recovered. 

Sensor fusion can supplement the shortcomings of perception sensing systems. Required here is an intelligent balance between central and edge processing to drive data to the fusion engine. Cameras and LiDAR sensors provide excellent lateral resolution, but even the best machine learning algorithms require ~300 ms to make a lateral movement detection with sufficiently low false alarm rates. In today’s systems, ~10+ successive frames are needed for reliable detection with low-enough false alarm rates. This needs to be lowered to 1-2 successive frames to provide more time for the vehicle to take necessary evasive action.

New technology needs to be developed and brought forth—enabling advanced perception capabilities at high speeds—to support fully autonomous driving in both highway and city conditions. However, the more this is worked on, the more complex use cases will be identified that need to be addressed. Furthermore, inertial navigation will be a critical aspect of autonomous vehicles for the future, as these systems are impervious to environmental conditions and are needed to complement perception sensors, which can be impaired in certain situations.

The role of ADAS and full autonomy

Another major, non-technical factor one must consider in the goal of achieving Vision Zero is finding a balance between what technology can do and what legislation will allow.

Currently, industry leaders follow two tracks: advanced driver assistance systems (ADAS) and fully-autonomous vehicles. While the automotive industry feels more assured about ADAS than fully-autonomous vehicles, ADAS technology is still not perfect. 

OEMs and Tier 1 automotive suppliers are currently focused on Level 2 or Level 3 autonomy, as they view these as good business opportunities. Legislation associated with highly-autonomous vehicles isn’t firm yet, and other areas such as insurance and regulations need to be further explored to put a proper framework in place. Robo-taxis, for example, are poised for debut in several US cities. These vehicles will likely be on top of broader Level 2 or Level 3 applications already in place.

Much more work is also needed to improve the performance of specific sensing technologies like radar and LiDAR, and various algorithms that actuate automobiles and conditions. When we get to 2020 and beyond, where AEB becomes more of a standard feature in cars, is where we formally start shifting to Level 3 autonomy. However, further improvements are required to get from where automakers are today to where they would need to be to achieve this.

OEMs really embrace the two-track dynamic. For example, with robo-taxis, they are considering that the economics of this business is entirely different from mass market automotive, as it embodies ride-sharing services. One of the other dynamics within that specific market enables OEMs to place advanced technology in these vehicles to mature hardware, software, and the sensor fusion framework. Even though OEMs have more faith in ADAS, seen more often are instances where they have created separate companies to take greater levels of vehicle autonomy into account. However, there are also OEMs that do not have research and development capital to follow this course, instead partnering with other companies that specialize in autonomous driving technologies.

In the middle of this two-track system lies Level 3+ autonomy. Though not fully autonomous, Level 3+ is more advanced than existing ADAS systems and combines premium performance features with practical functions. Although much higher performance sensors are needed to support Level 3+ applications, such as full speed highway autopilot and AEB+, when the vehicle not only brakes, but also swerves to avoid an accident. Level 3+ features highly autonomous technologies, including a critical sensor framework that lays the foundation for future fully autonomous vehicles. 

Although we are not at the point of full autonomy, Level 3+ automation gets us closer towards achieving the goal of Vision Zero as it balances practicality and performance, combining developments from the two tracks to develop a safe transportation ecosystem. This is the inflection point where autonomous technology becomes much more capable and available to the public.

Journey to Vision Zero

Regardless of industry leaders’ different approaches toward reaching Vision Zero, a diversity of high-performance perception and navigation sensors help get us there. Additionally, high-quality data generated from these sensors helps ensure decision-making software makes the correct decision – every time. The journey to Vision Zero and full autonomy follow the same road. Any player in the ecosystem must keep that top of mind in the coming years given the goal of autonomous vehicle development is to usher in a new technological and business model era, as well as save lives.

Chris Jacobs, Vice President of Autonomous Transportation and Automotive Safety at Analog Devices 

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I’m not a confident driver, so I almost turned down the opportunity to test the new Nissan Leaf for three days – but I’m very glad I didn’t.

I learned to drive when I was 19 on the distinctly un-mean streets of Milton Keynes – a town 50 miles from London, known for its 130 roundabouts (traffic circles, if you’re from the US) and utterly straight, flat roads. Predictable and easy – nothing like the rest of the UK, where city centers are single-track tangles of tarmac, lined with parked cars and connected by winding country lanes with a mad sounding speed limit of 60mph.

Before taking the Leaf on the road, I booked myself two refresher lessons to make sure all knowledge of driving hadn’t somehow dribbled out of my ears in the 10 years since I passed my test. The instructor’s car was a Toyota Prius – a hybrid to bridge the gap between the petrol-fuelled Nissan Micra I first learned in, and the shiny new Leaf.

Thankfully, everything was still there, even if a little rusty. The car didn’t roll five times and burst into flames. There were no fatalities. I was ready.

A helping hand (or foot)

The Leaf is a nippy, agile little thing or so it felt to me, my point of reference being a Nissan Micra. It easily handled the rather steep, winding path down to the beach I chose to visit on our first day together – not in Bristol or Milton Keynes, but the island of Harris and Lewis in the Outer Hebrides.

One of the Leaf’s key selling points is the e-Pedal, which applies the brakes automatically when you lift your foot off the accelerator. In theory, this allows you to drive with just one pedal.

It took some getting used to; it often hit the anchors a little more forcefully than I would myself, and prevented the 'creep' that makes automatics inch forward when neither brake nor accelerator are pressed. I did become accustomed to it though, and I can see it working well for stop-start city driving.

The ProPILOT parking was more impressive still, and felt like a glimpse of (automated) things to come. Line the car up with a space, make sure the correct parking mode is selected using the touchscreen (parallel park, or forwards or reverse into a bay), check that the coast is clear, then hold the ProPilot button and the car will take over, turning the wheel and applying the accelerator and brakes for you.

The car's multiple sensors watch out for obstacles, and releasing the switch or touching any of the controls yourself will return the car to your control if you need to take over. It goes without saying that you need to keep 

ProPILOT works best with clearly marked bays, and you must take care to select the right mode before letting it take control. On my first attempt, in a quiet supermarket car park, I selected parallel parking by mistake and ended up perpendicular, neatly straddling two spaces. I don’t think anyone saw me, thankfully, and it worked perfectly on a later attempt.

It's worth noting that, when reversing into a space using ProPILOT, the car always performs a two-point maneuver rather than turning 90 degrees. It means the car has more room to move, and can more easily judge angle and distance, but fellow drivers might get impatient.

ProPILOT doesn’t always detect every empty bay either, resulting in you crawling along and holding up traffic, but with a little experience you’ll learn how to position the car so it identifies available spaces.

When you're doing the hard work yourself, the rear camera makes life much easier, as does the Intelligent Around View Monitor, which shows a bird's-eye view of the car and its surroundings. Better yet, it also shows the car's trajectory based on the position of the steering, making it easier to judge maneuvers. 

On the right track

Having learned on the enormous streets of Milton Keynes – a town built for the car – I found the relatively narrow Hebridean roads a little daunting, and was terrified of straying too close to the center line and clipping oncoming traffic.

With hindsight, I should have given the Leaf’s lane departure warning a shot. This system warns you if there’s a risk of you leaving the traveling lane unintentionally. It wouldn’t improve my driving, but could have served as a set of training wheels, helping me get a better sense of the car’s position on the road relative to my own until I didn’t need it.

Charging is amazingly simple – no tougher than charging a phone – and the need to wait a while for its battery to charge means you get a pleasant break from focusing on the road.

I also picked my destinations carefully – a beach, a park, an ancient stone circle, somewhere to take a walk and get some fresh air. Even with the Leaf lending a hand, I still arrived pretty anxious – but I did get there.

• Driverless cars explained: everything you need to know

In the future, cars will be far more customizable. Think about the endless options on your typical smartphone, including the ringtones, the wallpaper options, the tweaks you can do for app notifications. Because we’re all heading to a driverless car future, the options available for drivers will be almost endless as well, starting with how the car itself drives.

In a recent test of the 2019 VW Jetta GLI, a 228-horsepower racer, I found I could adjust basic settings using the Drive Mode button, located to the right of the driver. With a click, you can select options like normal, comfort, and sport. That’s fairly standard in many VW models and in plenty of other makes and models from Nissan, Mazda, and others. 

What’s far more interesting in the Jetta GLI is the custom mode, which lets you tweak the drive modes in more detail. I was surprised by the setting for the exhaust, which you can adjust in volume. (It’s noticeably louder when you set the exhaust for sport mode, and quite a bit quieter in normal mode.) To tweak settings, you select Custom then use the small pencil icon to make further adjustments. A pop-up for each specific option appears.

For example, you can also adjust the Dynamic Chassis Control or DCC to comfort, normal or sport. DCC adjusts the suspension of each tire as you drive, so in sport mode you can feel the road more intuitively, and in comfort mode you glide over bumps. I tested this multiple times on highways and around curves on country roads, and there is a distinct difference.

Sport, eco or comfort

In the custom drive mode screen, you can also tweak the settings for steering, front differential lock (for traction and handling), drive system (throttle response), the exhaust, and climate control (in eco mode, the car disables air conditioning). I’ve never seen this level of control in a passenger car like this, although the settings are even more varied in a Dodge Challenger and other sporty cars. The idea is that you want to feel the road and maintain control of the car for more spirited driving. Cornering in particular feels more responsive. 

On one drive, I forgot I'd left all of the settings in sport mode, and two passengers started complaining about the bumps on the road and felt a bit nauseous because the corners pulled harder that they wanted. I was able to press the Drive Mode button and quickly select comfort mode, which helped everyone feel less like they were on a track.

I could see someone tweaking the settings to provide a blend of comfort and tighter control, leaving the suspension on comfort but choosing to tightening up the steering, for example.

As usual, my thoughts drifted to how this might change as cars become ever more advanced. When a car drives for us, we will want to do something to feel like we’re in control. It might be settings for whether the autonomous car tech is more aggressive about passing other cars and getting us to a destination faster.

It might have more to do with making all of the suspension settings more comfortable during certain parts of a drive, but then we would take over on country roads when the corners and straightaways are a bit more fun and challenging.

On The Road is TechRadar's regular look at the futuristic tech in today's hottest cars. John Brandon, a journalist who's been writing about cars for 12 years, puts a new car and its cutting-edge tech through the paces every week. One goal: To find out which new technologies will lead us to fully self-driving cars. 

The 2019 Ford Expedition is one of the biggest SUVs on the market. It has room for eight people to sit comfortably and still provides plenty of storage. (A total of 104.6 cubic feet of space for cargo.) In fact, the vehicle is 17.5 feet long, from front fender to rear bumper.

It’s case you’re trying to picture how big that is, think of a small yacht. And, as you can imagine, it’s really fun to park.

Even though it’s been around a while, I’ve never tested Ford Active Park Assist feature on such a massive SUV before, especially in a crowded parking lot. I decided to spend a few hours at a shopping mall and at a college parking lot to see if the bot actually worked.

To use the feature, you press a small button in the center console, between the seats. Once engaged, you can select whether you want the bot to help you parallel park or assist with the more common perpendicular park (the normal parking spots at the mall with the yellow lines).

I selected perpendicular park, and the screen prompted me that it was starting to look for open spots. I could control whether the Ford Expedition looked to the left or the right of the vehicle by using the turn signal, so I signaled left. After a few minutes, the car then alerted me that it had found a spot, and told me to pull forward a bit. Then, it told me to stop.

All of these directions were clear and visually engaging. The instructions didn’t leave anything open to interpretation or guesswork. I stopped, and the Expedition then told me to shift into reverse. I watched as the bot controlled the steering for me as I reversed maybe ten more feet. Then, the Expedition starting angling the yacht-sized SUV into position.

Cutting it close

Because we’re talking about algorithms and sensors here, my first thought with this size of a vehicle was that it seemed to cut the angle a little close. The truth is, I’m sure Ford engineers debated about whether to make the corner really tight or whether the car should pull back, pull forward, and repeat that a few times. Is it better to get the parking assistance over with quickly? The answer is yes. Even though the corner was tight, it still worked.

The Expedition did instruct me to pull forward once (while still controlling the steering). Yet, the entire process took about five minutes. Eventually, I learned to trust the sensors and stopped wondering if the vehicle was cutting the corner too sharply. After coming to a final resting place, the entire process always felt like it was smooth and obvious, that the car was in full control.

It’s amazing technology, something I’ve tested many times in smaller Ford vehicles. In the Expedition, it’s really helpful because of the vehicle size. I could see someone who isn't that great at parking using this feature regularly, relying on the sensors and the automated steering and even abandoning the parking stall if the sensors beep too many times.

It’s a technology that makes the most sense on a massive SUV, and not as much sense on smaller cars like the Ford Focus that are much easier to park. It seems as though, in a smaller car, it might take more time to use Active Park Assist than to just be careful.

On The Road is TechRadar's regular look at the futuristic tech in today's hottest cars. John Brandon, a journalist who's been writing about cars for 12 years, puts a new car and its cutting-edge tech through the paces every week. One goal: To find out which new technologies will lead us to fully self-driving cars. 

Ford has created a shopping cart with automatic braking to stop kids ramming it into shelves, signs, and other customers.

You were probably guilty of doing it yourself – getting a good run-up, then leaning on the handle of the cart and coasting along like a supermarket superhero. Great fun, until you collide with an elderly shopper or a stack of cereal boxes you were too short to see.

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The futuristic looking self-braking cart is fitted with sensors to detect obstacles, and automatically slows down to avoid hitting shoppers and shelves.

Safer shopping

The cart is the latest in a series of concept designs that pluck Ford's driving aids from its cars and put them to use elsewhere. Past projects have included the lane-keeping bed, which detects when your partner has strayed onto your side and shifts them back, and the noise-canceling kennel, which blocks out loud noises like fireworks that could alarm your pet pooch.

In this case, the design is inspired by Ford's Pre-Collison Assist technology, which is available in most models and uses a forward-facing camera and radar to detect vehicles, pedestrians and cyclists in the road. When a person is detected, the system warns the driver and applies the brakes automatically if they don't respond in time.

The cart is only a concept for now, so it won't be appearing in stores just yet, but it's interesting to see other ways in-car tech could be used to solve problems away from the streets.

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Adaptive cruise control started out as a feature only for luxury cars – and the people who can afford them. The technology uses sensors that monitor the car in front of you at all times, adjusting your speed automatically. On the highway, if you set your cruise control to 65mph, but the traffic speed is more like 55mph, your car will match the traffic speed. When you use adaptive cruise, you can also set the gap distance from close, medium, or far away.

Originally, adaptive cruise used sensors that were far too expensive for lower priced cars. In recent years, it became more common on mid-range cars, like the Ford Fusion.

I remember testing adaptive cruise on several Infiniti, BMW, and Mercedes-Benz models when it first came out about seven or eight years ago. I’ve now seen this safety and convenience tech on much more affordable cars, including the 2019 Kia Forte I tested this week, which costs $17,790 (about £14,000, AU$25,000).

I’m now convinced it should be standard on all new cars. Similar to the back-up camera, which the US National Highway Traffic Safety Administration started requiring on all new cars built since May 2018, adaptive cruise is a no-brainer as far as a safety feature.

It just works

I realized this while testing the Forte. In one instance, driving on the highway with no cars in front of me, I set the adaptive cruise to 60mph. I was talking to my wife and looked over at her while we were making plans for later in the day. A car pulled out in front of me far ahead, but the adaptive cruise control kicked in and the Forte started slowing down gradually.

In other cases, adaptive cruise control (or ACC) – which seems mostly like a convenience feature so you don’t have to constantly speed up and slow down – is also a major safety aid. In a traffic jam, you won’t always notice when the car in front of you brakes suddenly. It didn’t happen in the Forte, but in other tests, I’ve noticed how the ACC will kick in suddenly.

The issue is that we can’t be 100% aware of traffic at all times. One of the best commercials I’ve seen that demonstrates this is from Audi that shows automated braking. It don’t show it specifically in the commercial, but we’ve all been in situations where you look down for a split second at coffee spilling or look back to see a kid crying and that’s just when a car pulls in front of you. ACC is a major safety feature hidden in the guise of a convenience feature.

As automations in cars progress even further, we’ll rely on ACC more and more. And, if it becomes standard on all new cars, drivers will become more accustomed to relying on the sensors to help them, even when they take their hands off the wheel more and more.

Even more important, as cars connect to intersections, road signs, other cars, and the infrastructure in general, ACC will become even more important. It’s the key technology on the road to fully autonomous driving. It means every car will be equipped with the sensors needed for automated driving. And, the costs are obviously low enough for even entry-level cars.

There is a long way to go, however. Many trucks and rugged vehicles like Jeep Wranglers sometimes do not have ACC, and the truly budget-priced cars that cost only $13,000 (about £10,000, AU$18,000) or so like the Chevy Spark often do not come equipped with ACC. It’s also typically an upper trim level add-on. Automakers, my challenge to you is to make ACC available at all trim levels, and on all makes and models. It works.

On The Road is TechRadar's regular look at the futuristic tech in today's hottest cars. John Brandon, a journalist who's been writing about cars for 12 years, puts a new car and its cutting-edge tech through the paces every week. One goal: To find out which new technologies will lead us to fully self-driving cars. 

Imagine you just pulled up to the Cheesecake Factory. If you have ever eaten there before, you know they serve some tasty cuisine. With my family, the first one out the door usually gets to pore over the menu before anyone else and make their picks. It’s a race to the culinary finish line, and after parking I’m usually the last one to arrive at the table.

Of course, having kids bolt out of your crossover isn't ideal. There are cars everywhere, and some of them are being driven by teenagers with a freshly minted driver’s license. Sure, cars are moving at low speeds, but you have to stay super vigilant.

Not so fast

In a recent test of the 2019 Hyundai Santa Fe, which was redesigned for this model year, I was not as worried. A new feature called Safe Exit Assist became a great ally. 

Here’s how it works. For starters, if you're parked and a car approaches from behind, a new tech in the Santa Fe kicks in. It’s called Rear Cross-Traffic Collision-Avoidance Assist (RCCA) and alerts you to other vehicles from the rear. You see a yellow exclamation mark in the display, and if you are backing up, the Santa Fe will brake automatically.

That’s nice, but I was more interested in Safe Exit Assist. I asked my wife to sit in the back of the crossover and locked the doors. Then, I turned off the Electronic Child Safety Lock with the press of a button. This means anyone can exit on their own. We waited until a car approached from the rear and side, and she tried to exit. The Santa Fe showed an alert in the display and beeped, and also enabled the safety locks so she wasn't able to leave.

We waited a bit longer, and when no cars were approaching she was then able to go. A Hyundai rep said the tech is even more advanced – if she had opened the door but then a car had approached, the Santa Fe would have also beeped (we chose not to test that).

Big Brother is driving

It’s a fantastic new feature, even if it is slightly dystopian. As usual, I started thinking about cars taking over for us. Maybe they won’t unlock if they 'smell' too much beer on our breath, or at least only drive autonomously.

Future cars might notice how we are really bad at backing up and decide to take over the controls for us. If we’ve been driving too long, the car might pull over and go into a lockdown model. (Actually, Volvo is working on something similar.)

In some ways, the Safe Exit Assist reminds me of how, on some GM cars, you can’t disable the automatic engine off feature anymore. The engine will always shut off when you stop.

On the positive side, maybe autonomous cars will watch how we drive and adjust settings in real-time to match our driving prowess. We won’t even notice.

I like how the Santa Fe keeps passengers safe – and really, that is where we want technology to make the most intrusive decisions, monitoring the situation and preventing us from making dumb mistakes since we can’t pay attention to every problem at all times.

That said, I would prefer a few more options for the setting. Maybe there is a master override, and a way to tweak the settings for whether the alerts are visual or audio only. At the shopping mall, the beeps and alerts appeared quite frequently.

I’ll take the features the way they are if they keep everyone safe. It’s a trade-off between necessary precautions and feeling like tech is making decisions for us.

On The Road is TechRadar's regular look at the futuristic tech in today's hottest cars. John Brandon, a journalist who's been writing about cars for 12 years, puts a new car and its cutting-edge tech through the paces every week. One goal: To find out which new technologies will lead us to fully self-driving cars. 

Skoda is trialling a new scheme that will let you specify your car as a delivery address when you shop online, avoiding the hassle of having to wait in for parcels.

When you check out online, you'll have the option of allowing the delivery company to take your new purchases straight to your vehicle. It doesn't matter where you've parked – the courier will find it using GPS. Think of it like Amazon Key, but for your car rather than your home.

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A mobile app will give the courier one-time-only access to your car's trunk during a limited time window, allowing them to open it up, deposit your new purchases, and lock it again.

Special deliveries

The system is currently being trialled in Skoda's home nation, the Czech Republic, with two of the country's biggest online retailers: Alaz.cz and Rohlik.cz. If all goes well, and drivers are happy having packages dropped in their cars, the company hopes to roll it out more widely.

"This pilot project provides a concrete look ahead at how everyday life can be made even simpler and more convenient in future by using state-of-the-art technology," said Jarmila Plachá, head of Skoda Auto DigiLab, the company's workshop for developing new connected car technology. "I’m looking forward to further developing this project together with our partners.”

• Skoda is now offering virtual cockpits as an optional extra

Testing sensors in cars isn't always the easiest task. In the new 2019 Volvo V60 for example, there’s a new technology called Oncoming Lane Mitigation that can scan ahead of you and detect when there’s a car coming right at you. The automated braking system will engage if needed, but from a journalistic perspective, that’s not a great test scenario.

That said, I can attest to the new sensors working better than they have in the past. That’s one of the great blessings (and curses) of all technology: it's always improving, but it's also always in a state of improvement. There are no perfect sensors in cars today – we know that because some of the autonomous driving tech has caused serious accidents.

Feel the difference

Driving the V60, you can also tell the sensors react differently, and at higher speeds. Volvo first introduced Pilot Assist in 2015 with the 2016 Volvo XC90, and I tested it back then. To engage the adaptive cruise and automated steering, the car had to follow behind another car at speeds up to 30mph. It was meant for stop-and-go traffic on a highway.

With the V90, there doesn’t need to be a car in front of you, and the adaptive cruise and automated steering work at speeds up to 80mph. A Volvo spokesperson told me the second generation Pilot Assist was a software update that added the new features. And it's much easier to test. In the V60, the automations worked at all normal speeds.

It’s not exactly a new feature – Tesla offers automated driving as well without the need for a pilot car, and so does Cadillac with its Super Cruise feature.

I was more interested in Oncoming Lane Mitigation because that's something I have not tested and has not been included in a car I’ve tested. It works by constantly scanning in front of the V60 for an oncoming car.

If the sensors detect that you are on a two-lane road and someone is passing a car coming toward you and is now in your lane, the V60 will start braking automatically. To me, it’s proof that sensor technology is progressing.

It reminds me of another sensor technology in the Infiniti Q50 that’s a little hard to explain. A sensor scans in front of the car that’s in front of you. So that’s two cars ahead. It can bounce the signal off of the second car and see that is is swerving or braking.

Always vigilant 

Volvo was also quick to point out that the V60 isn't making constant software updates, and doesn't use actual driver data. What’s really happening is a hardware revolution.

As the sensors become more affordable and prevalent, the algorithm that tap into that data improve. At one time, only the high-end luxury cars with the best LIDAR sensors could detect other cars. Now it is so common that adaptive cruise control is available in budget cars.

It's important to note as well that the V60 can brake when it detects a pedestrian, another car, or a large animal jumping in front of you. These safety features are designed to help the car stay vigilant at all times – something that human drivers never do.

On The Road is TechRadar's regular look at the futuristic tech in today's hottest cars. John Brandon, a journalist who's been writing about cars for 12 years, puts a new car and its cutting-edge tech through the paces every week. One goal: To find out which new technologies will lead us to fully self-driving cars. 

Not content with giving you a disembodied voice as an in-car personal assistant like BMW's Natural Interaction, Nissan is developing its plans for three-dimensional augmented reality (AR) co-drivers who'll answer questions and provide information about the road ahead.

Nissan unveiled its Invisible-to-Visible technology at CES 2019 in January. The system combines data from the car's sensors with mapping and other information stored in the cloud, and presents it all in AR.

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You will be able to see this presented as a 3D map inside the car, but for the personal touch, you'll also have the option of interacting with a virtual co-driver, who'll sit beside you on your journey.

Nissan has also elaborated on the idea of a 'Metaverse', which it has now defined as "a virtual world where people can interact through avatars", providing company and assistance on long journeys. Think Ready Player One, but with less fighting and more virtual back-seat driving.

The speed of progress

It might sound odd, but Nissan is quite serious and its latest test has brought the idea a step closer to reality by using low-latency 5G to transmit data for the AR avatar to a moving vehicle at its Grandrive test facility in Japan.

Fast, low latency data connections will be essential for the next generation of in-car assistants and level-3 autonomous driving, which allows motorists to take their attention off the road to attend to navigation and entertainment. We'll soon see 5G-ready vehicles entering production (such as the Byton M-Byte, which is due to hit the streets before the end of 2019).

However, 5G systems will need rigorous testing before they can be relied upon for safety-critical tasks. So far, 5G standards are fairly ambiguous, and it will take time for them to be set and improved. 

Nissan's virtual co-driver is an interesting concept, but at the moment it's only possible thanks to Nissan's close collaboration with Japanese mobile operator NTT DoCoMo. It's unlikely we'll have AR buddies to keep us company on long road trips in the real world in the near future.

• What is 5G? Everything you need to know

Finding the best way to get around a busy city is no easy task. Unless you know the place like the back of your hand, choosing between cars, public transport, bike and even scooter shares can be a daunting prospect – but IBM's Watson might be able to help.

At MWC 2019, Seat and IBM announced Mobility Advisor, which uses Watson artificial intelligence (AI) to work out the best way to reach your destination – whether it's a train, ride-hailing service or an electric scooter.

The tool's suggestions will take into account traffic reports, weather forecasts, and any events happening in the city that day, so you won't get caught in the rain riding a hire bike, or reach a train station at the same time as a crowd of sports fans.

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Mobility Advisor is currently in development, and is intended to run as a mobile app on 4G and 5G networks. Over time, it will learn your preferences and make personalized recommendations based on the way you like to travel.

Seat also used MWC to unveil Minimó: a fully electric vehicle that's designed to help take the pressure off congested streets.

Minimó's design is part car, part motorcycle – keeping passengers under cover, but small and nimble enough to navigate crowded city centers.

Life in the smart lane

Mobility Advisor isn't Watson's first time Watson has hit the road: at CES 2019 in January, IBM demonstrated an autonomous shuttle with the AI 'super assistant' doing the driving.

The shuttle had level-four automation, with no steering wheel, brake pedal or accelerator. instead, guests were invited to try getting from A to B within a small test space using voice controls.

Passengers were also able to ask simple questions about the weather, but future versions of the system might allow time-pressed city-dwellers to pick Watson's brain for much more advanced queries and get some serious work done while the AI handles the navigation and maneuvering.

MWC (Mobile World Congress) is the world's largest showcase for the mobile industry, stuffed full of the newest phones, tablets, wearables and more. TechRadar is reporting live from Barcelona all week to bring you the very latest from the show floor. Head to our dedicated MWC 2019 hub to see all the new releases, along with TechRadar's world-class analysis and buying advice about your next phone.     

You just drove over the side of a snow bank (mostly for fun). How do you know you won’t roll your Jeep Wrangler over and end up calling for a tow truck?

That’s a scenario that actually happened during a week-long test. The snow bank was not that dangerous (or even that mountainous), but it was definitely helpful to have an in-dash indicator of the pitch and roll for any off-roading adventure.

In the 2019 Jeep Wrangler Sahara, there’s an app called Off-Road Pages that not only shows the real-time pitch (front to back angle) and roll (side to side angle) but also includes gauges for things like current transmission and oil temp, altitude, and even your precise GPS location (the kind made up of numbers, not a map that every car has in the nav system). 

Testing these gauges reveals something interesting about how future cars will provide a whole new level of detail someday, especially when we don’t need to use the steering wheel, the brakes or the accelerator. You can monitor the finer details while the car drives itself.

Strong and stable

My test did involve driving up to a snowbank. Using the 4H setting, which helps with tire slip and provide power to all four tires, I easily traversed up into the mogul at about an 8% gradient. That’s enough to give you a slight sense of being at an angle, but nowhere near feeling tippy. 

In my area, there’s also a massive hill you can drive up in the summertime (not recommended in winter) – it would have been helpful to see the front to back angle for that incline (the pitch), and even decide not to keep going further up a hill and back slowly down instead.

In many ways, these gauges are there for posterity – they are similar to the Performances Pages you see in a vehicle like the Dodge Challenger that help you measure your acceleration and braking distance. Maybe they are a little impractical but certainly fun to test.

The Coolant Temp gauge is a bit more actionable – if you are racing the engine too much on a hot summer day, you could decide to pull over and sit idle before you overheat the engine. Knowing the altitude is also handy if you live in a place like Denver or Utah.

Info at your fingertips

I’m curious how future cars will provide even more gauges like this. One I’d like to see is related to air quality. In some parts of a city, it would be helpful to see a measurement of the outside air quality and decide to turn back and not keep heading in a certain direction.

Of course, there’s also a lot we could monitor on social media when we reach the stage when we don’t need to pay attention to the road. When I make a post, I’d like to monitor the retweets or likes on Facebook, or even pull up a social media marketing app like Buffer.

Eventually, a car will become a computer. We’ll use Google Docs, watch movies, surf the web, and maybe even perform much more complicated tasks like holding a virtual meeting. We might work on a morning commute, running Photoshop or playing Fortnite.

For now, I’m a big fan of Off-Road Pages. Information like this might not always be useful or practical, but it enhances the off-roading experience – even for a small snow bank.

On The Road is TechRadar's regular look at the futuristic tech in today's hottest cars. John Brandon, a journalist who's been writing about cars for 12 years, puts a new car and its cutting-edge tech through the paces every week. One goal: To find out which new technologies will lead us to fully self-driving cars. 

Are we too rude to our virtual assistants? It's not something that had really crossed my mind until I had the opportunity to try a demo of BMW's new Natural Interaction interface at At MWC 2019.

The system lets you operate your car using gesture, gaze and speech recognition, and will launch with the BMW iNext in 2021. It's very impressive, accurately detecting and interpreting commands, but there was just one problem for me: as a stuffy Brit, it made me feel a little bit impolite.

When it launches in the BMW iNext in 2021, Natural Interaction will be invisible: just gesture in mid-air, speak and the car will understand. For the demo, however, BMW had set up a mixed reality simulation of the experience. I was fastened into a headset and directed to an ‘elevator’ (in fact just a doorway connecting parts of the demo room), which transported me to the ground floor of a hotel, where my shiny new virtual iNext awaited.

I carefully got inside (I never saw the physical setup, but there were pedals, a steering wheel and a seat with haptic feedback) and pulled away. Then, as I moved onto a freeway, the car's soothing voice informed me it was taking over and began introducing me to the principles of Natural Interaction – and things got awkward.

What's the magic word?

The first thing that struck me was that my virtual co-driver was nameless. Instead of addressing it, as you would Siri or Alexa, you just point a finger and start ordering it to do your bidding.

The final version of Natural Interaction will let you call the Intelligent Personal Assistant (as it's formally known) whatever you like. Dr Christophe Grote, senior vice president of electronics, suggested "Hey BMW" or "Hi Beamer". However, with gesture and gaze recognition, the car already knows when it’s being spoken to. There’s no actual need for a wake word – and that seemed strange. Like clicking your fingers in a restaurant to get the waiter’s attention, pointing and demanding felt like bad manners.

The demo encouraged a kind of childlike curiosity – but that of an irritating child. I jabbed a finger at virtual monuments and told the car to tell me about them, which it did, with the patience of a saintly parent. "What's that?" "Down!" "More information!" As my countrymen say, it just wasn't cricket.

Not everyone will have such hangups – but to be truly natural, perhaps there should be different cultural settings. I'd feel much more at home with a stuffier assistant who refused to respond unless I minded my Ps and Qs, could only be activated by saying “Sorry to bother you”.

Are we nearly there yet?

After trying the demo, I had the opportunity to speak to Dr Fathi El-Dwaik, BMW's vice president of user interaction, human-machine interaction, and display and control concepts. Since the iNext will be sold in all major markets around the globe, I asked if his team had to bear in mind any cultural issues (like my British stuffiness).

He explained that BMW had indeed taken differences into account when creating Natural Interaction – particularly when it comes to gestures and facial expressions. However, he says his team found that many more factors were common all over the world.

“There are some differences between expressions and phrases, but we can take care of them,” he said.

After I jabbed a finger at a movie theater and demanded the car book me a ticket, it asked if I’d like to watch a movie trailer – not unlike a frazzled mother who’s tired of keeping the kids entertained. I answered ‘yes’ (mentally adding ‘please’) then felt the pedals move away from my feet. The virtual steering wheel and dashboard vanished, and I found myself in a screening of the next Mission Impossible. I removed the headset to find a BMW rep next to me with a tub of popcorn. I thanked her, smiling – and for me, that's the most natural interaction.

Even with accurate interpretation of gestures, speech and gaze, human-like communication is tricky to pull off – not just technologically, but also because 'natural' can mean very different things to different people.

Thank you for the ride, Beamer. Cheerio, and see you in 2021.

MWC (Mobile World Congress) is the world's largest showcase for the mobile industry, stuffed full of the newest phones, tablets, wearables and more. TechRadar is reporting live from Barcelona all week to bring you the very latest from the show floor. Head to our dedicated MWC 2019 hub to see all the new releases, along with TechRadar's world-class analysis and buying advice about your next phone.

BMW has announced a next-generation interface that it hopes will let drivers interact with their cars like they're chatting with another human.

Natural Interaction, unveiled at MWC 2019, uses a combination of gesture, voice and gaze recognition in various combinations. The system will detect and interpret the commands based on the situation and context, and will use machine learning to improve its accuracy over time.

The system will detect your exact hand and finger movements, as well as the where you're looking when you make it. For example, you can point at a window and say 'down' to lower it, or point at a mysterious button on the dashboard to find out what it does.

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Gestures aren't limited to the car's cockpit; thanks to HD mapping, you can also point to buildings outside and ask for information on them. 

You could point at a restaurant that looks interesting and ask to see reviews or book a table, or point at a cinema to find out viewing times and book tickets. You can even point to a space and tell the car to park there.

There are currently seven gestures, two of which are customizable: pointing with two fingers, and opening and closing your hand (a little like squeezing a sponge).

BMW has also improved its voice controls, making them more human-focused. A video demonstration showed how telling the car you're feeling tired could turn down the temperature, open a window, and put on some rock music to sharpen you up.

"Our goal is to push the boundaries of interaction between humans and cars," explained Dr Christophe Grote, senior vice president of electronics, at a press conference. "Our vision is an intelligent car becoming more human-like."

The road ahead

Natural Interaction will make its debut in the BMW iNext, a prototype of which was on display at the conference, and which is due to launch in all major territories in 2021.

For now, most of the system focuses on the driver (though Natural Interaction can detect gestures for both front seats), but future iterations could extend to the rear seats as well. As Dr Grote explains, while the iNext features level three automation (which allows you to safely take your eyes off the road for a while), in cars with level five automation, everyone is a passenger.

Natural Interaction will also reduce the need for physical controls within the car, but Dr Grote says BMW doesn't intend for it to replace its iDrive infotainment system just yet.

Some processing takes place in the cloud, but a lot is performed within the car itself, which keeps your information private and means the system still works in places without reliable 5G connectivity.

None of your data will be sent to third parties. If you decide you specifically want to ask Alexa a question, you'll be able to do that, but the connection to Amazon will close as soon as you're done.

However, you might never need to turn to another virtual assistant. Ultimately, Dr Grote says, BMW envisions Natural Interaction as your "ultimate companion, who anticipates and suggests before I know what I want". 

It's an ambitious goal, and we look forward to trying the system for real in 2021.

MWC (Mobile World Congress) is the world's largest showcase for the mobile industry, stuffed full of the newest phones, tablets, wearables and more. TechRadar is reporting live from Barcelona all week to bring you the very latest from the show floor. Head to our dedicated MWC 2019 hub to see all the new releases, along with TechRadar's world-class analysis and buying advice about your next phone.

There are times when technology in cars becomes more than just a curiosity or a line item on spec sheet. In a recent test of the 2019 Infiniti Q50 Red Sport AWD, a setting for driving on snow proved incredibly helpful. How it actually works also became abundantly clear.

That’s an interesting finding for me. Sometimes, in a car test, you have a hunch about how a particular mode works or what is happening behind the scenes. After testing the redesigned 2019 Ford Edge not long ago, the Co-Pilot360 system that nudges you back in your lane if you veer into a shoulder too far was quite visceral – you know exactly what the engineers intended. 

In a similar way, after driving the Q50 on multiple outings in both light and heavy snow, it became obvious what was happening, and it was a major advantage.

Cold comfort

First, you should know that the Q50 I was testing came equipped with snow tires and already benefits from all wheel drive. A computer senses tire slip and can provide power to other tires or keep the vehicle centered if the tires start to spin too much. Subaru has been doing that for years. However, the snow setting goes well beyond that.

To enable it, there’s a small drive mode button to the right of the driver. You press back on it twice to enable Snow mode. (You can also use Eco mode, Sport mode and a few other settings to customize the driving mechanics.)

I don’t need to talk to the engineers to know how it actually works. First, the Q50 knows to back off on the throttle when you speed up – it’s the opposite of sport mode. In a winter storm, driving on a road where I couldn’t even see the lane marking, I never slipped on the road because the Q50 was not surging forward (even though with a 400 horsepower engine it certainly could have). The snow setting was a good match for this vehicle – it’s like a nanny minder for snow.

Another obvious technical feature: the AWD worked in conjunction with the snow setting to monitor tire spin at all times. I was impressed, after making several turns on snow-packed side streets, at how the vehicle maintained its bearings and stayed centered on the road. This is what we all really want with automotive tech: driver assistance features that stay out of the way until you really need them.

On another drive in even heavier snow, I never had to think too much about winter driving tips (steering into a spin-out, not accelerating or over braking) because the Q50 was monitoring my driving and helped me avoid a spin-out. 

Confidence-building

One more feature that seemed to come into play, and might be just as important as the slow acceleration (which feels like you are starting out in second gear), is that the vehicle tends to slow down faster than normal. This is similar to a feature in some ATV and UTV models called engine braking (it’s also common in semi-trucks).

I’m not sure if it is tied to the snow mode or just the way the Q50 tends to drive, but I do know the Q50 tended to come to a faster stop than most sedans I’ve tested which helped me avoid braking too hard. You just lift your foot off the accelerator and the car will slow down enough to help you brake to a stop.

The snow setting helped my confidence level – I’m not a big fan of driving in heavy snow. It’s one of the future-minded features in cars that will only improve over time, eventually allowing us to switch to a self-driving mode even in snow where the car knows exactly what to do. 

It might be some way off – one of the issues with the Q50 and all modern cars is that, if the sensors are covered in snow and you don’t wipe the snow off, you won’t benefit from the tech. And, while the Q50 did work in near white-out conditions, I’ve noticed some cars have trouble when there’s too much white all around the car. Sensors like cloudy days with no snow.

Yet, the sensors are improving. I’ve tested the snow setting in previous Infiniti cars and not had quite as much success. The Q50 was a champ on every snow-packed road I tested.

On The Road is TechRadar's regular look at the futuristic tech in today's hottest cars. John Brandon, a journalist who's been writing about cars for 12 years, puts a new car and its cutting-edge tech through the paces every week. One goal: To find out which new technologies will lead us to fully self-driving cars. 

It was a cascading symphony of beeps. I was driving a 2019 Nissan Titan truck, a hulking beast that could drive over a snowbank without blinking. Pulling out of my garage, a rain and snow mix pelting my driveway, I didn’t notice a shovel was sticking out a little... sideways.

Those beeps are slightly obnoxious, to be honest. Fortunately, you can adjust whether they scan around the truck with a near, medium, or far range. The Titan knows the difference between a shovel sticking out and someone walking past in a parking garage (thanks to moving object detection sensors), but in the future, vehicles will be able to scan even more specifically. In the age of distraction, human drivers will have to get used to the beeps.

All-seeing eyes

It’s going to be an adjustment for some. The sensors are important because it’s impossible to really know what is around you at all times. In my case, that day in the garage, I had no idea a shovel was sticking out. I didn’t see it in the rear view mirror or a side mirror. 

As I’ve mentioned countless times in this column, artificial intelligence algorithms and lidar (light detection and ranging) sensors can scan in all directions at once, and they are always vigilant. I’m not. Early in the morning, half-asleep but running on autopilot (from a human perspective), I don’t always jump out and look around the vehicle every time before heading to work.

In the Titan, there are two large buttons that can help you disable the sensors as needed. One is a parking sensor button and one is a rear-cross traffic alert button. Both augment the Intelligent Around View Monitor system to spot objects (both moving and not moving) that could interfere with the truck at lower speeds (such as in a parking situation) and at normal speeds.

In practice, you hear the chime and see a warning light in the direction of the object. In my case, that shovel in my garage caused all of the beeping and, in the dash display, I saw a flashing green then yellow light. I stopped, jumped out, and moved the shovel.

Context matters

It’s invaluable, but it takes some time to adjust to your senses. I set the distance to far so that the beeps didn’t happen quite so often, but I could see that someone owning this truck who uses it in a construction yard or who is maneuvering around tight corners towing a trailer who would like to know about any possible impediments and judge if they are serious or not.

Future cars might use sensors that are much more refined. I can imagine a truck knowing if an object is a human or an animal (some Volvo, Mercedes, and Audi vehicles already detect the difference) but also knowing the speed of the object and if it will collide with the truck. In a construction yard, the truck might know a lot more about the surroundings and even take over the steering to avoid a nasty ding. Sensors would know if it is a plastic object or a metal barrier. 

Many vehicles are already capable of intervening – some can steer away from an object, some will brake automatically – but few can tell the difference between a shovel and a fence.

The good news is that sensors (and the algorithms) will become even more refined, spot smaller object, judge whether a collision might occur, intervene even in tight spaces like a warehouse or your garage, or even decide that a little plastic object is no danger at all.

Computers always follow the same set pattern of instructions, day in and day out. In the Titan, that meant noticing the handle of a shovel blocking one of the tires below and to the right side of the truck. We might have to adjust to this future reality, when vehicles will feed more data to us than we can handle, but we will appreciate the intrusion. After a while, anyway.

On The Road is TechRadar's regular look at the futuristic tech in today's hottest cars. John Brandon, a journalist who's been writing about cars for 12 years, puts a new car and its cutting-edge tech through the paces every week. One goal: To find out which new technologies will lead us to fully self-driving cars. 

Is a heads-up display (or HUD) really that important for modern drivers? Once found only in sporty cars like the Chevy Corvette, the see-through floating display that appears above the hood is now available in many crossovers and even the 2019 GMC Sierra Denali 1500 4WD Crew Cab I tested recently.

It’s not exactly a technical wonder – a projection shines up on the windshield as you drive – but the data in an HUD has changed in recent years. In the future, an HUD might become the primary display we use, if we can adjust our senses to it. 

The GMC Sierra shows current lane-keeping data, speed, GPS direction, and even offers a mode where you can see the incline of the truck as you drive, which is especially helpful for off-roading and climbing hills. What really sets it apart, though, is that the HUD looks about 8-10 inches wide and matches the awesome size of the pick-up truck itself.

More info, less clutter

This is more important than it sounds. In some cars, an HUD is actually annoying because it obscures your view. Adding more info, particularly for lane-keeping, just makes the display look even more cluttered and causes more distraction. In the Sierra, the windshield is so big that you don’t mind having the extra visual data to help you drive and as a safety feature.

 In my test, for example, the lane-keeping info was invaluable. In the HUD, you can see when the truck is centered by glancing at the green lines that appear on both sides of your virtual truck in the HUD. It’s almost like a video game, but it’s useful because a truck is so massive that it’s sometimes hard to know if you're centered in the lane.

If you've enabled cruise control and collision detection, a virtual car will appear in the HUD as well showing there’s vehicle in front of you. It’s not quite a Tesla Model S, which shows a virtual representation that matches whether it’s a truck or car in front of you, but it is still helpful and unique.

All-terrain guidance

The HUD mode that shows the truck incline (front-to-back and side-to-side) also shows which AWD and 4WD mode you have enabled, so you can use it as you drive over rough terrain.

In theory, if you start driving up a mountain pass that's getting a little too steep, you can stop and go backwards, and the HUD is the best place to look because you can keep your attention on the road. It’s also a good reminder about having 4WD enabled or not.

(The HUD doesn’t look that impressive in the photos; it looks much clearer, bigger, and useful when you're actually behind the wheel of the truck.)

HUDs and automation

As I mentioned, cars and trucks will one day display more information in the HUD, and it might extend much wider on the windshield. We’ll have to adjust to this over time, because having data for current music playback, speed, navigation, lane-keeping, and other settings all displayed at the same time in a long row might be seriously distracting.

Where it might come in handy is when cars become much more automated and even drive entirely on their own. We can glance at these displays when we want to check road conditions, but otherwise stay focused on typing on a laptop or even watching a movie.

For now, the 2019 GMC Sierra provides a nice mix--plenty of info on a large display, but not so overwhelming that it obstructs your driving or causes any distraction. 

On The Road is TechRadar's regular look at the futuristic tech in today's hottest cars. John Brandon, a journalist who's been writing about cars for 12 years, puts a new car and its cutting-edge tech through the paces every week. One goal: To find out which new technologies will lead us to fully self-driving cars. 

Photo credit: Joe Miller

BMW is one of those companies that know how to design the exterior of a vehicle, add safety features, and provide lush and comfortable seating. However, in a recent test of the new 2019 BMW X7 at CES 2019, it’s obvious that the interface is the most impressive.

You could argue that how the information presented on the screens inside a car is more important than the design or other features, since we’ll all be driving autonomous cars (ahem) in the next 10-20 years. How we interact with cars will be increasingly important.

BMW set up a track with a huge hill, ramps, and other ways to simulate what it would be like to drive a $73,900 (about £58,000, AU$103,000) sport utility vehicle in an off-road situation. (Would you actually dream of mudding with this vehicle? Probably not, but maybe someone will about 20-30 years from now.)

 Photo credit: Joe Miller 

As we went up the first ramp, the screen changed to show a real-time image of the vehicle tilting at about a 22-degree angle. That’s right around the cut off point where some vehicles might actually start to get tippy, although it depends greatly on your speed, whether there are rocks and tree branches involved, and even the consistency of the dirt.

I’m an avid off-roader and have tested many ATV and UTV models over the years, and what we were doing with the X7 was incredibly tame, but showed how the interface worked at least. In a real-world situation, the driver at least has some information about what is happening to the vehicle.

Self-driving potential

On the larger ramp, the X7 uses a hill assist feature that prevents the vehicle from rolling backwards. As you can see from the photos, rolling backwards would be dangerous because the driver is no longer in control and can’t see where the SUV is heading. Rolling down the ramp, the X7 can also control its speed (we used about two miles per hour) as you descend. Like many high-end luxury vehicles that use AWD and 4x4, you can also control vehicle height.

Photo credit: Joe Miller 

Now, I asked a BMW rep a bit of a trick question (not really, because it was fairly obvious). I wondered how this tech would help you avoid a situation where the vehicle might tip over. He said the laws of physics will always exist, and he is right about that. However, I envisioned a scenario where there is a lot more future tech involved, both in the car and around you.

For example, if an AI bot in the car was constantly analyzing the road in front of you, looking for the gradient of the road and any impediments, it might offer to steer out of troubling situations. If a BMW X7 connected to other X7 vehicles, the data on vehicle tilt could transmit to other drivers.

And, maybe it could go a step further in hill ascents. I could see a future scenario where you push a button a let the vehicle drive over a hill like the one we encountered. It would analyze the hill and then decide on your behalf if the hill was too steep. If the car can handle the hill, it could enable all of the right features for you automatically and do the driving.

Photo credit: Joe Miller 

How often would you encounter a hill like that in your commute? Not often. Yet, it’s impressive that the technology is there and the interface provides such rich, real-time information to the driver. Knowing it is possible is at least some assurance about handling less stressful situations.

• Check out all of TechRadar's CES 2019 coverage. We're live in Las Vegas to bring you all the breaking tech news and launches, plus hands-on reviews of everything from 8K TVs and foldable displays to new phones, laptops and smart home gadgets.

The latest version of Nissan’s Leaf has been unveiled at CES 2019, and it features a subtle but reassuring twist for any potential owners who suffer from range anxiety.

Top of the pile is the Nissan Leaf 3.Zero e+ Limited Edition, which boasts a higher output. The fun and funky saloon, best known for its wonderfully addictive e-Pedal, will deliver 160kW (217 PS) of power, 340Nm of torque and a predicted 239 mile range from one charge of the 62 kWh capacity battery. 

The Leaf 3.Zero e+ Limited Edition will deliver a 40% range increase over another cheaper edition of the car, the Leaf 3.Zero, which is equipped with a 40 kWh battery. Anyone worried about making it from A to B will most likely want to plump for the model with the beefier battery, which is predicted to deliver up to 62 miles more on one charge.

The road ahead

Nissan chose CES 2019 to show off the more muscular model, along with showcasing its Invisible-to-Visible (I2V) technology concept that aims to add another dimension to your driving in the future.

We got to experience this I2V idea first-hand with an in-car demo in front of the assembled masses. It involved donning a bonkers-looking VR headset while we sat inside a four-seat futuristic mock-up car and then proceeded to wend our way around winding mountain roads.

A virtual racing driver kindly offered up some top tips for making it around the tortuous bends. The system also works by letting you know what might be lying around blind corners, which if it could become a reality would be extremely helpful when it comes to not hitting things.

Meanwhile, back around a virtual city centre, the Invisible-to-Visible demo located hard-to-find parking spaces by scanning a multi-storey car park and locating a vacant spot. At the end of it all we got an SD card record of what we’d just experienced, just in case it all seemed like one of those CES dreams that you tend to get after experiencing tech overload for a few days. 

Battery-powered fun

It’s an interesting concept that remains just that for now, but after going for a real drive out into the desert in a US-edition of the Leaf a little later we rediscovered that there’s more than enough to keep you entertained with this battery-powered bundle of fun.

Better still, the Leaf is a breeze to work through the ridiculously congested streets of Las Vegas with CES in full swing. The e-Pedal lets you nurse the car in and out of queues, junctions and car parks with minimal fuss and bother. And, let’s not forget, around town and shorter urban journeys is what most Leaf owners will probably be doing anyway.

The new car itself is pretty similar to the earlier incarnation, although there are some minor style flourishes, such as a lip on the bottom of the front bumper, an e+ logo on the charging socket cover and cool two-tone colour combinations. Inside the car there’s going to be a bigger eight-inch infotainment screen to replace the existing 7-inch offering and it will include recent additions such as the door-to-door navigation system. A NissanConnect EV app will also be available.

Also featuring in the revised models is the ProPilot system, which aims to make everyday driving life easier with a selection of options that let the car maintain your speed, keep you in your chosen driving lane and offering assistance with braking. On the Tekna edition the ProPilot park system can get you into a space automatically too.

Easy does it

In fact, the Leaf comes with enough tech appeal that makes it wonderfully easy to drive, but at the same time, the EV is a really tempting proposition because of it’s torque-y electric motor and the aforementioned e-Pedal that spices up any kind of journey. 

The Leaf 3.Zero will be priced from £31,095 including the £3,500 UK Government Plug-in Car Grantwith. The e+ Limited Edition will be priced from £36,795 including Government Grant. Prices for the US and Australia are yet to be announced.

Nissan’s lovable electric car was the highest selling electric vehicle in Europe in 2018 and, with that new and improved range, could tempt even more people to dip a toe into the world of the EV.

• Check out all of TechRadar's CES 2019 coverage. We're live in Las Vegas to bring you all the breaking tech news and launches, plus hands-on reviews of everything from 8K TVs and foldable displays to new phones, laptops and smart home gadgets.