Thanks to the propensity of Ford Explorers and other SUVs to roll over when pressed, it looks like the world is finally going to get one of the most useful technologies in the auto business – tire monitoring.
Explorer will itself get a basic tire monitoring system later this year, and that should help because an underinflated tire can contribute significantly to a vehicle's tendency to cartwheel off the road.
This fall, a more comprehensive system from Siemens Automotive will appear, likely in the totally revised BMW 7-series that's debuting at the Frankfurt Motor Show.
Siemens calls this system TMS, which the German parts supplier says stands for "tire pressure, temperature and acceleration" and can be used for all standard Original Equipment Manufacturer (OEM) tire makes and models.
The director of body electronics for Siemens Automotive, Pat Banas, is hot on TMS because it could be "one of the best solutions to customer tire concerns and the impending legislation requiring pressure sensing to be standard on motor vehicles."
The Siemens system is better than other systems under development, Banas claims, because it "measures the pressure, tracks the temperature inside the tire and measures finite acceleration."
Banas says that, by monitoring a tire's internal temperature and its acceleration through rotation speed as well as its pressure, Siemens TMS: