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AnchorDesk

Patrick Houston
MS wants to change your oil...and more

Patrick Houston
Editorial Director, AnchorDesk
Friday, June 6, 2003
TalkBack!Add your opinion
When you're in your car, do you think about technology the same way you think about it when you're in your office or at home? If you don't, you should. Because it's getting to the point where technology is going to play as big and as material a role on the road as it plays where you work and where you live.

We started following car technology for our recent special report. We keep finding more and more of it.

IN THE COURSE OF my reporting, I've become convinced that technology isn't just affecting what and how you drive. It's also having an increasingly large impact on the way you buy, sell, and maintain your car.

For example, on June 9, Toyota Motor Sales will launch its new Scion line of cars, created to appeal to 18- to 25-year-olds. They belong to a generation that Toyota itself describes as technology savvy. So Toyota is betting on technology to attract them.

But not in-car technology--at least not much of it, anyway. The two Scion models--the xA and xB--are subcompacts that will sell south of $15,000. Toyota will offer satellite radio and a sound system capable of playing MP3s. But at that price, you won't get the laser-guided cruise control I recently told you about. Nor the sophisticated navigation system that comes with the high-end Infiniti Q45 which I subjected to a tech drive.

INSTEAD, Toyota is making its play on the Web. Yes, every major auto manufacturer has a sophisticated Web site. But Scion.com pushes the envelope. Its site features live chat and a powerful configuration player that allows potential buyers to pick and choose among 40 different options to create customized cars in some 10,000 possible variations. From the site, you can print out your own brochure, e-mail your order off to the dealer, or lock down financing.

The dealer showroom experience is decidedly digital too. Instead of being beset by a sales agent, Scion would rather have it customers peruse the Web and the Scion site on computer workstations.

It's all just one more bit of proof that, when it comes to cars, the more we look, the more technology we see. You can take a look at more of it, too, in the video clips we've assembled below.

* * * * *

GM kills the engine
GM shows off its "Hy-Wire," a fully functioning prototype vehicle with no steering wheel, no pedals, and (most importantly) no combustion engine. It runs instead on hydrogen fuel cells, which means the only thing coming out of the tail pipe is water vapor.

MS wants to help change your oil
Keep forgetting those 3,000-mile checkups? Microsoft's My Car service on MSN will remind you when to take your vehicle in to be serviced; it'll also compare local gas prices for you and send you live traffic alerts.

Wind River builds dashboard of the future
John Alexander, product manager at Wind River Systems, shows off his company's speech-enabled in-dash information system. It offers GPS-based navigation help, manages the entertainment systems, and keeps track of your car's vital stats.

It does everything but the driving
Jerry Fiddler, founder of Wind River, demos his company's telematics system, which handles climate control and entertainment, helps with navigation and route planning, and, with the addition of a GSM card, can serve as your no-hands car phone.

Infiniti takes tech to the streets
I hit the road to test drive the Infiniti Q45 and look at how the information technology inside could make you a better driver.

Keeping the shiny side up: Safety tech from Infiniti
Does the Infiniti Q45 make you a safer driver? I take a test-spin to find out.

What do you think? What kind of technology does your car have? What kind of technology do you wish it had? TalkBack to me! 

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