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With this kind of wiring, Ressler says, it was easier to incorporate Continental's "personalizing" features. With a turn of the ignition key, 24 different features-from seat and steering-wheel positions to interior temperature to choice of CDs-automatically adjust themselves to a motorist's preferences. The driver can even adjust ride suspension (firm, normal, plush) and steering effort (low, normal, high...
...Brock Yates, the curmudgeonly columnist for Car and Driver, questions the demand for this technological gimcrackery by suggesting that consumers can be dumb about smart devices. "For a nation that can't program its vcrs," he says, "I wouldn't want to imagine a future where people will be expected to operate a 4,000-lb. smart car propelling them down the highway at 65 m.p.h." Besides, says Yates, "the auto is the last bastion of personal freedom in the U.S. It promises enormous flexibility. This smacks of Big Brotherism. I don't want 'HAL' inside my dashboard telling...
...already proved on frozen test tracks in Sweden and on the upper peninsula of Michigan. Using a coordinating system of seven sensors that detect the sideways momentum, steering-wheel position and cornering rate of the car along with the rotation of each of its wheels, the asms overcomes any driver error and makes skidding virtually impossible even on ice covered lightly by snow. "With this system," says ITT's Tom Mathues, "you can floor the throttle and still get around a cone obstacle course. It's a no-brainer...
Another intelligent but pricey option, the rear-view, self-adjusting, electrochromatic mirror that protects the driver from the glare and intensity of headlights behind him, has already been installed on 5 million cars. Working on an extension of the same technology, Gentex, which developed the mirror, is testing auto glass that will dim at the flip of a switch to protect against sun glare and become completely opaque-to thwart prying eyes-when the ignition is off and the car is unoccupied...
While reservations are almost always expressed-as they should be-about the introduction of new technologies, only experience can provide the answer. It was just a few years ago, for example, that a columnist described air bags as, essentially, explosives aimed at the driver's face. Yet time has proved that the bags can be lifesavers under some circumstances and are therefore well worth the extra cost. Detroit is betting that smart cars will be similarly judged...