Bubble vision - the car of the future

By ALASTAIR SLOANE

Renault's vision of what the future holds for cars is more a celebration of how far the motoring industry has come in 100 years or so.

The flying family bubble appeared in a special magazine the French carmaker published to celebrate its centenary in 1998. It is there to ask: Will such a vehicle ever appear?

Who knows? Carmakers are working on all sorts of weird and wonderful designs, but for the moment they are pouring millions of dollars into making the car a mobile communications centre.

Take the system BMW expects to have in its cars soon. You are driving to Auckland airport for a flight to Wellington and a crucial meeting with a company. Big money is at stake. You have to be at your best.

You want to know the weather in the capital and the company's latest share price. Forget about ringing your mate at Seatoun. Just ask your 5-Series and the car's voice-recognition system will answer: "Rain, 30-knot winds from the south-east, 10 degrees." Then: "$7.60. Up 34c on yesterday."

Seconds later the system announces: "You have e-mail." You reply: "Please read it out." The voice browser says your 10 am meeting has been postponed one hour."

You wonder why. You start to feel a bit uncomfortable, hot around the collar. Relax. Plenty of time to get to the airport. "18 degrees please," and the car's air-conditioning system resets itself. Music would help. "Blackie and Jenny on 93.4FM please."

Sound like science fiction 10 years down the track? Not according to Wolfgang Schneider, writing in BMW magazine about a communications pilot project which falls into the category of telematics, or the wired world of the car.

"The future has already begun," Schneider says. "Internet and e-mail connection doesn't even require a computer. The only prerequisite for accessing the web is a hands-free mobile phone. That's because the system is controlled by a voice-browser which can convert speech into text and text into speech."

Today more than 200 million people use the web and researchers say that by 2005 that will have increased to about a billion, as will mobile phone use.

BMW researcher Karl-Ernst Steinberg says that by then on-board multimedia will be about as common as the car radio is today.

The car is rapidly becoming a mobile communications centre, thanks to advances in data transfer technology. Information now flows through mobile phone networks at 9.6 kilobits a second, but in the next few years technology will increase that by 200 times.

This will mean that satellite-navigation systems will no longer depend on CD-ROMS. In fact, CD-ROMS will be a thing of the past, certainly in cars.

Before setting out on a journey, Schneider says, motorists will simply inform the telematics service of their destination. The service will work out the ideal route and transmit it to the car's on-board computer, taking into account traffic flow and roadworks.

If you are going on holiday and you want to visit everything of interest along the way, telematics will do that too. It will also provide you with a choice of accommodation. All you have to do is speak up.

You won't even have to take your car for a maintenance check. By then every new BMW will have its own internet address, allowing all functions to be remotely tested.

Your car will be able to "talk" to your house, too - switch on the kettle, check the roast in the oven, turn the temperature down in the fridge for a few minutes to put a chill on the beer, or tune into the surveillance cameras to make sure everything is hunky-dory.

Video shops will be old hat. "Movies for the car or home will be downloaded from the Internet for a small fee," Schneider says. "Passengers in the rear of the car will be able to pass the time watching the latest digital-quality Bond adventure."

What happens if you get hungry along the way? Restaurants will be able to transmit lunch or dinner specials to passing cars. Supermarkets will try to lure motorists with special offers, as will petrol stations.

Steinberg says that looking further ahead, cars will even be able to swap information with each other. When two cars meet they will be able to warn each other of possible hazards such as black-ice, traffic congestion or other obstacles.

Okay, but how will telematics help motorists to solve one of the great frustrations of driving - finding a parking space? Easy, says Detlef Frank, another BMW researcher.

"Parking guidance systems in the cities will ensure that motorists are informed of vacant parking spaces well in advance, long before they even reach the multistorey carpark.

"We are also testing concepts which would allow you to make a firm reservation for a parking space en-route, via the on-board navigation system."

That's the type of concept a computer user near Eden Park, with parking for five cars in his backyard, might find useful on test rugby days.