Silicon Valley Meets Detroit

The international auto industry usually rings in the New Year in Detroit. In the coming weeks, manufacturers will meet in Detroit for the most important auto exhibition in the United States. But the last several days have shown that the exhibition in Detroit has lost its position as the first big auto event of the year. The recently-ended Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas has become required viewing for the auto industry. Car manufacturers and their suppliers are spotlighted in the CES like never before. Automobiles are the next big frontier for electronic innovation. The industry vows to make cars smarter — even to the point where they can drive themselves.

The auto industry recognizes that automobile electronics are becoming an ever more important selling point. Customers no longer only care about horsepower, design and gas mileage. They want their cars to do everything they’ve come to expect from their smartphones, whether that’s entertainment or useful applications like finding restaurants and avoiding traffic jams. Companies in the Internet and electronics industries, on the other hand, are tired of seeing cars as a blank spot on the map. From their point of view, the time people spend cut off from the digital world while driving is lost potential. They would be only too happy to see their operating range expanded to vehicles. This even more so because their smartphones and tablet computers are not enjoying the same growth rates as previous years.

Wider Integration

The two worlds are therefore growing closer and closer together. Google wants to install its successful Android smartphone software in cars, and to that end it has forged an alliance with Audi and its manufacturers at the CES. Google is countering a similar initiative by its rival Apple, which also found a partner. Other big CES themes like “wearable” electronics were also picked up by auto manufacturers. Daimler and BMW showed how they envisioned connecting their vehicles with computer clocks, and Hyundai employed the use of Google Glass.

Outfitting cars with computer technology conforms to the wider trend of integration that was noticeable at the CES. Integration increasingly extends beyond computers and smartphones. More and more things are connected to the internet, from cars to appliances to industrial machinery. Sensors are everywhere and will make it possible not only for cars to communicate with each other, but also with traffic infrastructure and household items. These network-integrated cars could, for example, warn of dangers such as traffic jams or make sure the heating in your house is turned on before you arrive.

The farther Internet integration advances, the closer we get to cars that drive themselves. Auto manufacturers as well as Google are working towards this goal. Driving assistance systems like parking helpers are already commonplace, and in a few years solutions for partly automated driving at low speeds could be available. The final step of completely self-driving cars is likely to be well in the future, but there is progress. At the CES, Audi announced that it had drastically reduced its computer system for automated driving, which occupied a large part of its budget last year.

Auto manufacturers’ digital offensive opens a new arena for rivalries. Google and Apple, bitter contestants in the smartphone business, are now fighting for dominance in cars. There are opportunities for tension between the tech giants and their auto partners as well. The more important car digital accessories become for buyers, the greater the danger that engineering and other classical strengths of car builders fall into the background. This makes the question all the more pressing: How much control of the electronics will auto manufacturers be willing to give their tech-industry partners?

The automobile business is becoming more complex through the trend towards digitalization. Extra electronics may make cars safer, but they also bear the risk of adding new distractions to the person behind the wheel. Internet-enabled cars become susceptible to attacks by hackers. The hot-button issue of privacy also holds car companies back. Not everyone will be pleased by the idea that even more personal information will end up in the digital world, where it could be picked up by the wrong hands. However, the auto industry doesn’t need to ask itself such delicate questions at the exhibition in Detroit. This is still a place where they care first and foremost about the traditional virtues of good engineering.