Automakers ready to cash in on technology

GM CEO, unveiling driverless car and fuel-cell SUV, says future is
electronic

Since the International Consumer Electronics Show opened Monday, the buzz
surrounding automotive technology has been very real, and very loud, as a
Formula One race car speeds around a tiny track outside the Las Vegas
Convention Center.

Carmakers and manufacturers of electronics for them believe they have a
reason to make noise. The Consumer Electronics Association projects that the
market for car tech will exceed $12 billion in 2008, having doubled in just
five years.

CES 2008 is devoting more than a quarter-million square feet to car tech,
meaning the show of automotive technology alone this week reaches almost
half the size of the critically important North American International Auto
Show.

Even though the giant Detroit auto show opens next week, the convergence of
automobiles and high-tech products is nearing critical mass, and the head of
one of the Big Three automakers detoured to Las Vegas to deliver a keynote
address, the first time an automaker has gotten one of the marquee speaking
slots in the history of CES.

"Our intent is to bring you the future of transportation," Richard Wagoner,
chief executive of General Motors Corp., said Tuesday evening. "We'll do
this by working more closely than ever with the consumer electronics
industry, using electronics to reinvent the automobile."

'Lessons for the automotive industry'
In terms of the impact it hopes to make, GM is flooring it this week. Ahead
of Wagoner's address, it unveiled a prototype of the first "driverless car,"
a modified version of the sport-utility Chevrolet Tahoe called the Boss,
which the company hopes to have on the road within a decade. The Boss is
meant to navigate traffic-choked streets without any human involvement,
using cameras, radar and lasers.

Tuesday, Wagoner drove onto the stage in a Chevrolet Volt, an electric car
that he said was on track to reach the market by 2010. Then he introduced an
entirely new zero-emissions vehicle, dubbed the Provoq, a Cadillac designed
to run 300 miles on a single charge of its hybrid hydrogen fuel
cell/electric motor.

The emphasis on electric power is an important part of GM's strategy,
Wagoner said in an interview Tuesday with CNBC.

"We really see electronics playing a huge role as we endeavor to reduce our
reliance on foreign oil," he said, citing GM's experience with the OnStar
navigation system, which it introduced 10 years ago.

OnStar "taught us that the electronics industry has some lessons for the
automotive industry," he said.

GPS systems go for whiz-bang
If automakers are ready to embrace high technology, there are more than
enough companies here eager to supply them. The automotive hall is filled
with everything from new computer-driven safety equipment to wireless
high-end audio and video systems to sophisticated hands-free communications
gadgets.

But the big category is navigation using the Global Positioning System
satellite array. The CEA projected final 2007 sales to be up 41 percent, to
seize nearly a quarter of all car technology sales.

The biggest names in the industry are showing off advanced interactive GPS
systems that promise real-time data, ditching the stand-alone, pre-loaded
GPS module in favor of always-connected satellite and cell-network
navigation systems, some of them voice-activated.

The sophistication of the newer systems has drawn computing giants Microsoft
Corp. and Google Inc. into the game.

Google, for example, is partnering with Magellan Navigation Inc., on a
voice-recognition system that they said would eventually handle contacts and
calendar entries.

Microsoft, meanwhile, announced that Sync, a Bluetooth system developed with
Ford Motor Co. to allow wireless use of mobile devices like phones and MP3
players in the car, would be upgraded to automatically call 911 whenever an
airbag deployed. (Msnbc.com is a joint venture of Microsoft and NBC
Universal.)

Microsoft's MSN Direct service is also wrapped into some of the new systems.
Garmin Ltd. said it would introduce the voice-recognition Nuvi 880 later
this year, delivering real-time data integrated with Windows Live.

Two-way data streams promised
Other systems, such as one from the French company Mobile Devices,
incorporate real-time data in the other direction, collecting information
from users on the road to warn drivers of traffic snarls and to alert them
to available parking space and the lowest nearby gas prices.

But the device getting the most attention is one the CIA would admire.

Auto Page Inc. introduced a GPS alarm system called C3, which won CES's Best
of Innovations award for in-car navigation. C3 integrates a module allowing
owners to control their vehicles from anywhere in the world they can find a
compatible GSM cell phone signal.

Auto Page is touting C3 as a way to monitor a car's security and to start it
remotely, but CES participants seeing it for the first time are already
dreaming up other uses. Most popular, it seems, is the chance to track your
teenager's driving habits - with C3, you'll be able to confront Junior with
the text message proving he was speeding when he sneaked out last night.

Source: © 2008 MSNBC Interactive