The Wired Car
On Point with Tom Ashbrook January 12, 2012
Detroit wants to turn your car into a rolling internet connection. We'll look at cars as the web on wheels.
You may think your car has enough bells and whistles. Detroit and the rest of the auto-making world do not. The Detroit Auto Show this week is brimming with roll-outs and announcements and hints of a super high tech future for cars.
Cars that are one with the Internet and GPS and your home computer and the e-cosmos in the cloud. Cars that watch the road, watch you, watch your Facebook page, your heart rate, your smart phone. Cars that watch each other, like a flock of birds.
This hour, On Point: Ready or not, cars that are the "web on wheels," and more.
-Tom Ashbrook
Guests
Michelle Krebs, senior analyst at Edmunds.com.
Hiawatha Bray, tech reporter and columnist for the Boston Globe.
Doug Newcomb, senior editor of the Technology section at Edmunds.com.
Jim Buczkowski, director of Research and Advanced Engineering at Ford Motor Company.
My car doesn't have "enough bells and whistles": it has too many! Like almost everyone else in the world, I drive a rubber-tired, gasoline-powered vehicle that is functionally identical to a Model T Ford, and that's just plain wrong.
I don't need an "interconnected" car: I need a vehicle that gets sixty MPG, and that leaves off bells and whistles in favor of basic reliability, economy, and maintainability.
Bill Horne Moderator