While driving to work yesterday morning, the traffic was heavy. I stopped at the gas station to refuel. While the gas prices have been getting lower, the prices are still expensive (I was able to find a gas station with $2.29/gallon). This gave me some time to think about the car of the future…
The car of the future, realistically speaking, is not a flying-car, or super fast vehicles that take you from point A to point B at very fast speeds, or electric or levitating cars necessarily.
The car of the future is not about the car itself, but about the combination of intelligent cars that collectively use real-time traffic intelligence. The goal is to ensure a constant traffic flow. Instead of traffic flowing in packets, as it happens today, traffic will flow very, very tight or close together, not only making it constant and more predictable, but also helping save energy.
The car of the future is about the highway of the future. On the highway of the future, sensors will be located all over the place: streets, and highways and poles, even your driveway, all connected to a quasi-central station that monitors overall traffic performance. The car of the future wirelessly connects to the traffic monitoring station, and uses the up-to-the-second traffic information, combined with its current position (GPS), and detailed knowledge of streets and highways and their current status, to adjust routes and/or speed, or to suggest routes or speeds to use.
There is no reason (besides cost) why the car and highway of the future can't be built today.
ceo
[Image source: Volante Aircraft]
Update:
I just saw at the Mobile Technology Today website a piece on this same topic titled Future Car Tech: Say Goodbye to Traffic… that is very inline with the above thoughts…