Just how old is that hooptie in your driveway?
The average vehicle on American roads is nearly 12 years old, market research shows, as drivers hold on to their old, reliable wheels for longer stretches of time. That has held true even as more people than ever bought new cars last year — 17.5 million of them.
If you’re not a consumer who bought new in recent years, the showroom floor and its wares may look different from what you’ve seen in the past.
The most popular vehicles today are getting bigger in size, generating reams of data and, more and more often, pestering you to drive better. The vehicles built for the future — those that are merely bold concepts today — will be even more peculiar and provocative.
In the past two weeks, the CES technology conference in Las Vegas and the North American International Auto Show in Detroit offered tremendous insight into where automotive trends stand today and where they appear to be headed in the years to come. Below are seven trends every driver should have on his or her radar, whether looking to make a trade-in or just gawking at what’s on the road.
Let’s address the hype right here: Fully autonomous cars won’t be sold for quite awhile. How long that will be exactly is an open question and most expect the transition from driver to driven will be gradual. Nevertheless, most of the major automakers and many newcomers are trying to imagine what that future will look like.
Google’s self-driving spinoff, Waymo, announced at the auto show here that it has built sensors for self-driving and will put minivans with the technology on the road this month. At CES, Ford revealed the latest iteration of a self-driving vehicle that it hopes will be ready for the road come 2021.
That doesn’t mean a vehicle you buy this year won’t assist you with the driving. What’s here today are a litany of driver-assist technologies that could put you one step closer to a hands-free future. There are sensors that activate when you drive too close to the line or if there’s a car in your blind spot. Adaptive cruise control technology automatically adjusts your speed based on the distance of the car in front of you. Rear-view cameras are joined by side-view and aerial-view cameras.
Some of these technologies have existed in various states, but they’re growing more sophisticated, said Richard Wallace of the Center for Automotive Research. “We’re moving on to higher levels of challenges now,” he said.
Read more of the original article at The Washington Post.
