Buckle up, it’s going to be a surreal ride
Charles D. Morgan
I LOVE FAST, well-designed cars. For many years I drove racecars as a passionate, expensive hobby. I’ve driven Ferraris at Daytona and Porsches at Sebring, as well as Datsuns and other GT road-racing sports cars at various tracks around the country. I sometimes worked on my own cars, both engines and body, and today I often catch myself thinking, If only A.I. had been around when I was racing….
A.I. has the potential to change everything about cars and driving. Take something simple, like the looks of the car. An industrial designer today can ask ChatGPT to do a design analysis: “Is this car as eye catching as it could be? Can you suggest design changes that, without affecting the aerodynamics, would make it look more attractive?”
And it’s not just the ChatGPT of today that we’re talking about. We’ve already got version 4.5, so this technology just keeps evolving. In two or three years, the designer will say to ChatGPT: “Help us design it, help us with the outside view of it. Do you like this wheel design on this car? Do you think we ought to put a different wheel on it? What about the layout of the dashboard—is it as good as it could be? Look at the proportions of the rear seat and the ceiling. How tall a person can comfortably sit in the back seat? How does that compare to our competition?”
A.I. is going to save design teams a whole lot of time and research. Current data indicates that A.I. can reduce design time by up to 50 percent, compared to traditional CAD modeling. It can also design cars within the parameters provided by the customers themselves. For example, it can generate personalized interiors and exteriors based on customer preference. It can even analyze customer data to design ergonomic interiors for extra tall or extra short drivers. The era of the truly Custom Car is upon us.
Besides what we can see, there are a lot of bells and whistles and necessary components in cars that we customers usually don’t pay attention to, but they still require a designer’s eye. For example, a lot of people don’t know we have cooling systems in electric vehicles, but we do—not to cool the engine (because there isn’t one), but to cool the battery. In addition to EVs, I think for quite a while we’re going to have a mixture of gas- and diesel-powered cars along with a few hydrogen-powered ones, so we’ve still got a lot of design evolution to go. Again, A.I. can help create a better-looking and more functional car, and it can help us produce them more cost effectively.
Robots have long been used in automobile production, but A.I.-driven robots will take that automation to a much more advanced and efficient level. As A.I. itself tells me, A.I. robots “handle welding, painting, and assembly with high precision,” reducing labor costs and enhancing quality control. A.I. can also do detail work like installing microchips in electric vehicles, optimizing supply chains, and handling inventory tracking, all while working alongside humans in the manufacturing plant. About the only thing A.I. won’t do is go for a beer with the humans after their shift is over.
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OKAY, SO NOW you own a gleaming new car. What’s it like to maintain? What’s it like to drive?
Even today, most electric or luxury cars make use of A.I. “predictive maintenance,” which means that A.I.-powered sensors and diagnostics can detect early signs of mechanical failure before they drive you to a second mortgage. A.I.-equipped “smart assistants” can diagnose issues without your having to go to a repair shop, and some vehicles can actually fix problems via remote electronic updates. There’s no 20,000-mile checkup, no regular oil change. And since many vehicle problems these days are software related, even if you do have to visit your new favorite tech-nerd mechanic, repair shops increasingly employ A.I.-powered diagnostic tools that can instantly analyze millions of repair records to find the best, most cost-effective solution.
There was a time when stuff like that would’ve sounded to us like science fiction, but we’re way more jaded today. So how about this for sci-fi: Researchers are working to develop self-healing materials that will automatically self-repair those nicks and scratches in your car body left by the careless fools at the shopping center. Not only that, but A.I.-enhanced smart tires will self-seal small punctures before they cause a flat tire. There’s even talk about A.I. detecting rust and micro-cracks in vehicle frames and fixing them before they spread. All this is projected to become reality between 2035 and 2045.
These new features are very cool, but how do they affect the driving, which of course is the point of having a car? Most new-ish cars today have A.I.-powered automatic lane-keeping, automatic braking, and blind-spot detection. Some of that’s great (we all have our blind spots), and some is annoying—one friend of mine complains that even with cruise control, his car won’t let him go the set speed lest he get too close to the vehicle ahead of him. This same friend says his car dealer told him never to turn on the lane-keeping function because anytime he needs to veer left or right, it’ll be like arguing with an unbending schoolmarm.
I personally appreciate the automatic braking, and I make frequent but limited use of the automatic driving feature on my EV. But I find that the car still misreads some road conditions, so I’m not yet ready to take a nap at the wheel. Fully autonomous driving is projected to happen between 2030 and 2035. When that comes about, your kids will just climb into the backseat of your car, and it will lock the doors, drive them—all by itself—to school, and let them out at the entrance. You’ll still be at home drinking coffee and having a virtual meeting, probably involving holograms.
In the meantime, I think the driving experience has been changed most by advanced-tech design, such as onboard cameras and dashboard screens—the older I get, the more I appreciate the help in guiding me out of the driveway straight. And don’t forget GPS, which we’ve had so long that we tend to take it for granted.
Before it came along, how did we ever find our way across the vastness of America, with all its little unmarked roads, often in the dark? Next time you’re warned of a traffic jam three miles ahead, you can thank A.I.-powered GPS.
March kicks off racing season, and I’ll probably start keeping a monitor in my office tuned to this or that Formula 1 track. Today’s racecars are amazing technological feats, with many A.I.-powered components. I miss racing, but it’s a whole different ballgame now. Even the sounds of the screaming engines are often created by special effects these days. That’s sci-fi for you.
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Charles D. Morgan, proprietor of Morgan’s at the Little Red in Heber Springs, is also Chairman of the Board and Chairman of the Executive Committee at First Orion.
