Future demands much of tiny cars

Ypsilanti

Someday, we'll drive cars that are half the size, run electric drive trains, operate themselves and are connected to the electronic world outside their own sheet metal.

At least that's a scenario imagined by a group of experts who spoke at a seminar Tuesday about "future personal mobility," presented by the Ann Arbor-based Center for Automotive Research.

Sadly, no one mentioned flying vehicles -- not once.

But the ideas do show how cars will fit into the world, instead of simply a marketplace. Future cars can be safer, faster and provide more utility.

It's a prospect that is both inspiring and frightening.

"We've seen where (a short-term outlook) has taken us, and we have to take a longer view," said Jeffrey Adik, CEO of Intraduce Transit LLC, a Birmingham transportation planning firm.

Self-driving cars, he said, could arrive by 2016, if leaders set a rigid goal. Translation: Carmakers must look further into the future and understand how a vehicle lives with its owner and its environment instead of short-sighted adjustments to address profits and losses.

Carmakers also need to adjust quickly to urbanization, said Chris Borroni-Bird, General Motors Co.'s director of advanced technology vehicle concepts. In 2007, for the first time in history, more people lived in cities than in rural areas, he said.

Carmakers will need to build more efficient, smaller vehicles because urban areas are more likely to create rules restricting them in congested areas.

"Cities will define the role of the car instead of the other way around," Borroni-Bird said.

It's an interesting idea, one with merit.

Cities want to use valuable space differently to improve the quality of life. Smaller cars become the natural fit. They are easier to park, free up room and are more efficient, he said.

"Nearly one-third of the fuel a car in the city uses is looking for a parking space," he said.

Cars could save even more fuel driving themselves, experts said. City traffic could speed up -- automated vehicles would drive closer together, moving as a unit instead of individually.

Adik's company is working on an automated valet parking system that could let a driver drop off a car at a parking garage and let it park itself. That's almost as good as a car flying.

But even today, we've moved dramatically closer to cars that will nag us during our commute.

There are already cars that can detect vehicles in our blind spots, tell us when we're lost and adjust our cruise control speed.

The University of Michigan's Dave LeBlanc, a research scientist at the Transportation Research Institute, said future vehicles will be connected to the world through transmitters, radars and cameras, making vehicles safer and more aware of surroundings.

The university is conducting experiments with 16 Honda Accords outfitted with nearly 360 degrees of visibility to assist drivers. If a driver does something wrong, the car warns them. It's the beeping equivalent of a back seat driver. Oh, great.

Some ideas may sound wild, but the key to new high-tech features will be consumer driven, said Steve Millstein, president of ATX Group Inc., a Texas supplier of vehicle communication, navigation and information services.

"The technology is not the roadblock," Borroni-Bird said.

Indeed, it's acceptance. But even this group could not predict the response. Figuring out what drives consumer decisions and how that shapes vehicles is the biggest challenge, and the least likely to have an exact answer.

But the little cars will come, loaded down with features we can't imagine, with us beeping and bleeping all the way.