First production car powered by Android Auto rolls out – and it's a Hyundai Nearly a year after Google announced it was adapting Android to act as a car operating system, the first vehicle using the software has gone on sale from South Korean carmaker Hyundai. Google demoed its Android Auto operating system at last year's I/O developer conference, and said then it had 40 car companies lined up to use …
"Android Auto aligns with Hyundai's core interior design principles of safety, intuitiveness and simplicity
This only works with Android 5.0 or better and is billed as a safety feature. It's more a marketing gimmick than anything else. A true safety feature would not be tied to a specific 3rd party vendor's product and would instead be interoperable with a reasonable range of them. Why not set it up as a Bluetooth or USB device that you could download an app for from either Google, Apple, or MS, or even RIM if they decided to invest the time and effort?
Setting it up where a driver's phone automatically goes into a vehicle-safe mode during operation of said vehicle is a wonderful idea, but tying its implementation to a particular phone system is like linking the ability to use seat belts to the owner's political affiliation, as tempting as that might be for some.
The whole idea that hands free makes using a phone in a car safe has got to go. Studies have repeatedly shown that there is almost no difference - holding the phone in your hand or against your ear is not what distracts you, it is the act of carrying on a conversation with someone who is not in the car with you.
While speech to text is certainly more safe than tapping out messages with your head down, it is still a distraction as you have to monitor what it thinks you said and correct it when it gets it wrong.
so.... the woman ahead of me in the traffic last week while I was chatting hands free to my partner was less of a risk even when she repeatedly turned round to (apparently) scream at her rear seated kids, or the dick drifting across the lane-line while wearing his white earbuds, or the guy trying to drink from a cup while sorting out cash for the toll bridge... I could go on.
How can a conversation with a passenger be any more or less distracting than one on the phone? At least the dick on the phone you can hang up on if they become annoying - more than you can do to the muppet next to you while in motion.
By the standards applied here we need to move to a point where the driver is separated from the other occupants of a vehicle, the means of interaction is secondary to the nature of the interaction, I have seen what looked to be husband and wife having a huge row in the outside lane of a busy motorway at a relatively high speed, Honestly, if you cant talk hands free on the phone then by that standard ALL car journeys should be completed in stoney silence.
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You can ask "why" all you want, and while there are theories I don't think anything has been proven. The National Advanced Driving Simulator is located not far from where I live, and I know a couple of the people involved and even participated in one of their studies once. They've tested repeatedly and talking on the phone distracts drivers to a far greater degree than talking to passengers (I said talking, not "turning around to scream at kids in the back seat". I doubt they tested that, at least not intentionally...)
They found talking on the phone, even hands free, is as impairing as drunk driving with a BAC of .08. Either a BAC is .08 is a lot less of a problem than MADD wants us to believe, or hands free conversation is a whole lot more distracting than most people realize or want to believe (since drunk driving is not socially acceptable, but hands free talking is...at least today)
@AC, what you are suggesting is Homer Simpson's car idea. Maybe he was on to something after all.
I looked up some of these "studies" a while back and they were hilarious!
For example, one of them tested the distraction level of speaking on a phone, not by "speaking on a phone" but by giving drivers in a simulator lists of place-names and requiring them to repeat them back in alphabetical order in a minimal time. It turned out that the distraction of this task was similar for those being given the list of names by a "hands-free speaker" and a "hand-held speaker". Strangely they never tested having the person giving the list of place-names and badgering them to sort them into order sitting in the passenger seat as that would have been unrealistic.
So long as they only use it for the entertainment system, who cares? Someone is going to hack your car so it rickrolls you every morning on your way to work?
If it is connected in any way to the engine, braking, steering etc. then they are morons and deserve the lawsuits that hopefully result.
Yes my cheap as chips 535 does the same....and has a better Sat nav (Here) than the dreadful Google maps, can easily send and listen to texts should I wish to, makes and receive calls and plenty more.
Oh and it works with the Hynundai I have now, but unlike this system, it also works in loads of other cars without having to reload their system.
Knowing that I will upset a number of people I still have to ask why do we need an operating system in a car?
As it stands I do not see any logical reason for having any complex operating system controlling what the car does. Yes, I know that 'modern' cars have engine control by dedicated programmable chips (ECU) and from what I can see all that does is make repairing any faults very expensive. In fact I know of a garage that has a thriving sideline of removing all the electronics from the engine going back to all manual and getting better emissions readings than those of the controlled engine - emission control is the basic reason for all the engine electronics in the first place.
Other than it is 'cool' to have your car controlled by a computer - self driving cars anyone - why do we need this?
"...from what I can see all that does is make repairing any faults very expensive"
Yup, and there have been no advances in emissions, power management, engine performance, reliability etc in the last 20 years. None at all. Right.
"In fact I know of a garage that has a thriving sideline of removing all the electronics from the engine going back to all manual..."
No you don't. Some garages will "chip" a car, this means either putting new parameters into the existing ECU or, more drastically, putting in a whole new after-market ECU. Nobody makes a living removing the electronics from modern engines.
"...and getting better emissions readings than those of the controlled engine"
Now you're roving into bullshit territory. Even if an engine (and in fact therefore the whole car) was re-engineered at a cost of many times the vehicle's value, there is simply no way that the engine performance could be improved. Reliability and maintainability perhaps (electronics are certainly more specialised than pure mechanical engines). But not emissions or performance. Or do you think manufacturers simply throw £100s or £1000s of computers at modern cars just for fun, when your mate in a local garage can do a better job without them?
"emission control is the basic reason for all the engine electronics in the first place"
Didn't you just say you can improve emissions by ripping out the electronics? And now you're saying the electronics are only there to improve emissions? I think you need to up your medication.
As to why we need this, try reading the article. It runs the infotainment. It has nothing to do with the EEC, ECU, or any of the other electronics running the car.
In the mean time, until you've read and understood the article, stop spouting rubbish.
Additionally, the higher costs due to the electronics are often a case of "the sensor is showing something wrong in this system, it could just require some cleaning or tightening a screw but I'm not going to bother trying to find out what is exactly wrong, let's just replace the whole system (might still turn out cheaper considering labour rates)"
@AndyS
No you don't. Some garages will "chip" a car, this means either putting new parameters into the existing ECU or, more drastically, putting in a whole new after-market ECU. Nobody makes a living removing the electronics from modern engines.
Yes I do. They go as far as replacing the inlet manifolds as necessary and petrol cars get standard two barrel carburettors. In fact they did it to my Mazda 4x4 and every time I take it in for its biannual Controle Technique I get better than the book value emissions.
I also said that the electronics was/is used for emission control in the first place. This was to meet some 'perceived' requirement and it was thought that it would save people having to take the cars to a garage to be tuned up.
It might run the infotainment at the moment but how long before it becomes required as a backup to the latest EU directive that all cars will call home if they have an 'accident' be it a bump in a pothole or a real accident that requires reporting.
Yes I do.
You don't.
An ECU is dramatically more tunable than a set of carbs. So although you might (or might not) be able to set it up to achieve the same power and emissions at one particular point in the engine's range, you cannot do that across the entire range. It isn't possible.
Vic.
"Once it's up and running Hyundai drivers can, via the aforementioned dashboard screen, use Google Maps for navigation, make calls from the phone using voice activation, and use third-party applications "
In a normal car without this I can, via a screen I put on the dashboard, use Google Maps for navigation, make calls from my phone using voice activation, and use third-party applications. Exactly what benefit is gained by having an additional non-upgradeable computer+screen forcibly inserted in the middle of the process?
"Exactly what benefit is gained ..."
it is not a benefit for you the car owner or driver. It is a benefit primarily for Google and to lesser extent for Hyundai. Google benefits by "validating" their stuff "for use in cars", opening up the possibility for huge contracts and also the ability to collect even more user data (such as how often, when and where you drive your car, what you talk inside, possible some sensor data etc). Hyundai benefits by demonstrating they are an modern car company...
This stuff is not different than putting an Android tablet on the dashboard and having it connect to some pre-assembled in the car peripherals, such as speakers, microphones, light etc. Car companies do this for ages with various music players (cassette, CD, DVD, USB). It just ads some concenience.
But, while the typical in-car entertainment options have been mostly neutral, this one is a vendor-locked. Many people will chose a different car model because of this. Hyundai might rethink soon this strategy.
At first glance, I thought this story was going to be about self-driving cars.
In terms of British English, "auto" is rarely used or recognised as meaning car or even anything to do with a car without more context so I hope Google are planning on localising the name for the UK (and probably other markets) or they will be spending a lot more on brand awareness than they need to.
On the other hand, I often see UK books, films and TV shows have to be "americanised" (or americanized) for the US market but rarely see the reverse. I'm not sure if it's arrogance, ignorance or respect in terms of US distributors. Maye they think Brits are less dumb than Yanks and so expect us to be able to cope with mentally translating americanisms into britishisms :-)
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