Road testing a smart car

Technology involving mechanical engineering piques my curiosity, so I was thrilled to work on this segment. I knew my colleague Kosta Grammatis had already covered car-related innovations on “TechKnow,” but it turns out that vehicle-to-vehicle technology, or V2V, has nothing to do with driverless cars...at least not yet.

V2V is an innovation designed to protect drivers from their fellow drivers and stationary hazards on the road. V2V has the potential to warn you of pending emergency braking, sharp bends and even potholes ahead, often thanks to the prior experiences of other drivers.

I wanted to really put this technology to the test. So when I was invited to drive a GM car equipped with this technology, I saw that as a green-light to do a bit of “reckless” driving. Only in a car fitted with V2V would I be allowed to speed along, knowing that a crossing pedestrian—via an app on their smart phone—would trigger a warning alert in my car. And I could test out trying to emerge from a restricted view intersection. As luck would have it, the weather on this day was horrendous. Torrential rain and winds added a further level of danger to the whole experience—and the ability to test its real-world value.

I assumed that the V2V warning system would be irritating and that my need to reduce its volume would be as compulsive as it is with my GPS. I have always preferred to see, rather than hear my GPS instructions. To my surprise, however, this was not the case with V2V. The warnings appeared very subtly across the base of my windshield and central dashboard, and the warning sounds were gentle. (I later learned that some V2V test vehicles issued alarms through vibration, located on each side of the driver seat.)

Warning systems on a car I rode in at the University of Michigan’s Transportation Research Institute were entirely different again, displaying all signs graphically in the rear-view mirror, which I ultimately preferred. But all the various styles of the technology had an overall calming effect on my driving.

It was mind-boggling to think of the precision required for this technology. Deliver a warning message too soon and it could be ignored. Deliver it too late and it doesn't bear thinking about.  The amount of data exchanged every minute—10 times a second, in fact—for each car would surely generate terabytes of data, is one of the challenges they face, along with securing the wireless network.

On an optimistic note, nine major car manufacturers, UMTRI and the federal government are working together on one unified system, which helps pave the way for regulations requiring mandatory V2V installation in all new cars. Interestingly, high-end brands have accommodated similar warning systems for years. Though their systems don't interact with other cars and infrastructure, it is impressive that Audi, Mercedes and Porsche, among others, can warn you of cars entering your blind spot, to stay in your lane or to brake if objects are in your path.  

V2V is about preventing a collision, rather than making cars less vulnerable once a crash has occurred. Until that advanced technology is available, I’ll be one of those people sneaking peeks at my smart phone for traffic alerts and checking for crowd-sourced information on Waze.