Something of aflap recently in the regular news media about a global initiative to give carsaround the world a common door looking device, the theory being that it willindeed save lives and money as more of these agreements were reached betweengovernments in the bigger auto markets, including Canada.
It is certainlytrue that this is philosophically interesting as it relates to governments workingtogether toward the common good, and that possibly with time it may bringhigher safety standards to drivers in Canada and elsewhere.
But this publicdevelopment pales in comparison to the potential of a pair of privateinitiatives in industry cooperation, AUTOSAR and JASPAR, that are alreadygrinding away on the most critical element in contemporary vehicles -- theelectrical and electronic architecture.
AUTOSAR startedin Europe in September of 2003 and JASPAR began in Japan a year later, mostlyto counter Japanese concerns that they wouldn't have enough influence in thebigger group.
The Europeaneffort is by far the more important of the two groups, since it represents mostof the world's leading car companies (including some from Japan) and many ofits premiere parts firms.
If the work ofAUTOSAR goes as planned, it will have an enormous impact on the quality andsafety standards in the vehicles of the next decade and beyond, as well assteep financial gains for the companies themselves.
Instead ofdesigning their own complicated and unique systems, the various AUTOSARpartners are designing a set of common guidelines for how a vehicle'selectrical and electronic systems will work and -- importantly -- interact. Whilethere will be lots of common processes under a vehicle's body, there will alsobe lots of room for individual companies to create their own products usingthose processes.
Prof. Dr. HaraldHeinecke of BMW's research and development center is the primary spokesperson forAUTOSAR and he describes the theory this way: ''Cooperate on standards, and competeon implementation.''
Greaterreliability of the vehicle's electrical and electronic systems will likely bethe first gain the consumer sees, since it was the declining reliabilitystandards of various BMW and Mercedes models that motivated the two arch Germanrivals to form AUTOSAR so they could work together.
Simply put, suchtechnologies as BMW's iDrive and Mercedes' COMAND-APS system have proved tohave been too complicated for the engineers at the two firms to figure out inall circumstances, and their quality numbers are falling as a result. Thiswon't help anyone buying a Bimmer or a Merc for the next few years, but itshould make the German firms' lineups for 2010 and beyond a lot more reliable.
But the samewill be true for the other AUTOSAR firms whose quality numbers are actuallygoing up right now, so there will undoubtedly be lots of individual efforts todevelop other technologies of value to consumers.
This is wherethe potential of AUTOSAR really gets interesting, since one of the thingsfuture vehicles will be able to do much better than current vehicles is talk toeach other. Because they can converse, the theory goes, vehicles will be ableto share information on many things, including their relative positions,directions and speeds.
This abilityleads to the dream of cars that are too smart to run into each other, unlesstheir drivers are dumb enough to want them to.
Cars that canavoid each other is the holy grail of automotive safety, since preventingcrashes is now widely understood to be the only way left to further reduce thefatality rates in countries with established automotive cultures. They willalso help in countries with developing automotive cultures, such as China, buta lot more work of other kinds will also be necessary there.
At long last,then, it looks like the world's nations and the world's car companies arefinally working on ways to bring significant reductions in traffic deaths toall countries. It won't happen in great numbers for a long time, but it doeslook like it's going to happen eventually.
It is certainlytrue that this is philosophically interesting as it relates to governments workingtogether toward the common good, and that possibly with time it may bringhigher safety standards to drivers in Canada and elsewhere.
But this publicdevelopment pales in comparison to the potential of a pair of privateinitiatives in industry cooperation, AUTOSAR and JASPAR, that are alreadygrinding away on the most critical element in contemporary vehicles -- theelectrical and electronic architecture.
AUTOSAR startedin Europe in September of 2003 and JASPAR began in Japan a year later, mostlyto counter Japanese concerns that they wouldn't have enough influence in thebigger group.
The Europeaneffort is by far the more important of the two groups, since it represents mostof the world's leading car companies (including some from Japan) and many ofits premiere parts firms.
If the work ofAUTOSAR goes as planned, it will have an enormous impact on the quality andsafety standards in the vehicles of the next decade and beyond, as well assteep financial gains for the companies themselves.
Instead ofdesigning their own complicated and unique systems, the various AUTOSARpartners are designing a set of common guidelines for how a vehicle'selectrical and electronic systems will work and -- importantly -- interact. Whilethere will be lots of common processes under a vehicle's body, there will alsobe lots of room for individual companies to create their own products usingthose processes.
Prof. Dr. HaraldHeinecke of BMW's research and development center is the primary spokesperson forAUTOSAR and he describes the theory this way: ''Cooperate on standards, and competeon implementation.''
Greaterreliability of the vehicle's electrical and electronic systems will likely bethe first gain the consumer sees, since it was the declining reliabilitystandards of various BMW and Mercedes models that motivated the two arch Germanrivals to form AUTOSAR so they could work together.
Simply put, suchtechnologies as BMW's iDrive and Mercedes' COMAND-APS system have proved tohave been too complicated for the engineers at the two firms to figure out inall circumstances, and their quality numbers are falling as a result. Thiswon't help anyone buying a Bimmer or a Merc for the next few years, but itshould make the German firms' lineups for 2010 and beyond a lot more reliable.
But the samewill be true for the other AUTOSAR firms whose quality numbers are actuallygoing up right now, so there will undoubtedly be lots of individual efforts todevelop other technologies of value to consumers.
This is wherethe potential of AUTOSAR really gets interesting, since one of the thingsfuture vehicles will be able to do much better than current vehicles is talk toeach other. Because they can converse, the theory goes, vehicles will be ableto share information on many things, including their relative positions,directions and speeds.
This abilityleads to the dream of cars that are too smart to run into each other, unlesstheir drivers are dumb enough to want them to.
Cars that canavoid each other is the holy grail of automotive safety, since preventingcrashes is now widely understood to be the only way left to further reduce thefatality rates in countries with established automotive cultures. They willalso help in countries with developing automotive cultures, such as China, buta lot more work of other kinds will also be necessary there.
At long last,then, it looks like the world's nations and the world's car companies arefinally working on ways to bring significant reductions in traffic deaths toall countries. It won't happen in great numbers for a long time, but it doeslook like it's going to happen eventually.