2012 10Best: 10 Most Promising Future Technologies
dashborad dialogue
To improve today’s voice-recognition systems, carmakers are collaborating with smartphone makers to literally reach for the clouds. The connected car of tomorrow will exploit cloud computing, plus the vast menu of IT tools, apps, and updates raining down on the mobile-communication world to stream your home music collection into your car or remind you to grab a quart of milk. One of the handiest cockpit advancements connects an Escort radar and laser detector to an iPhone by means of a SmartCord Live cable. Thus paired, your smartphone is capable of displaying not only traffic, speed-limit, and speed-trap-location information but also any live alert reported by another Escort user in the area running the EscortLive app. This networking could be the most effective police countermeasure since the CB radio.
New Batteries
Imagine a $30,000 Chevy Volt with a roomy back seat or a Nissan Leaf with a 250-mile range. Success of the electric-car movement hinges on the arrival of better batteries. Two enterprises racing to commercialize advanced solid-state battery technology—Sakti3 and Planar Energy—hope to multiply lithium-ion energy density by a factor of two to three while halving cost. Their plans are to replace today’s liquid electrolytes with lithium superionic conductors called thio-LISICONs (solid ceramic material containing lithium, sulfur, germanium, and phosphorous) to save bulk and weight. Automated manufacturing processes will trim cost, while the likelihood of a chemical meltdown caused by improper charging or collision damage should be reduced significantly. GM, a Sakti3 stakeholder, hopes solid-state batteries will be ready for road-testing within five years.
Lightning-Bolf Lgnition
Conventional spark plugs struggle to fire lean intake charges that are laced with heavy doses of exhaust gas. To prevent misfiring, Mercedes-Benz uses several sparks per combustion cycle in its new high-compression 3.5-liter V-6. An alternative approach under development by Federal-Mogul is an Advanced Corona Ignition System, which sprays several ion streams into the combustion chamber like a miniature lightning storm. This high-frequency system occupies the same space as a conventional coil-and-plug ignition and has demonstrated a 10-percent mileage gain. Since this eliminates electrode arcing, which shortens the life of conventional plugs, ignition-system longevity should be improved.
Cylinders on the Chopping block
BMW and Mercedes-Benz reintroduced four-cylinder engines to their U.S. lineups after years of absence. Volvo is phasing out five- and six-cylinder engines in favor of threes and fours. Both Ford and GM have unveiled 1.0-liter three-cylinders slated for global duty. These and other makers are exploiting strides made with turbocharging and direct injection to deliver equivalent power from fewer cylinders and fewer cubic inches. The smaller, harder-working engines are cheaper, lighter, and significantly more fuel efficient. But don’t count on Corvette or Ferrari turbo V-6s—both brands have denied the existence of such engines for now.
Wireless Recharging
Magnetic inductive-charging pads save the hassle of plugging in your cell phone, camera, MP3 player, or portable GPS unit. Scaled up, this approach could also recharge an electric car’s battery. Both Rolls-Royce and Audi have shown experimental systems in which energy is transferred inductively from a floor pad to a corresponding surface on the bottom of a car. According to Rolls, magnetic inductive recharging is 90-percent efficient and tolerant of alignment errors.
Thermal Juice
One-third of the energy in every gallon of the gas you burn is dumped out your exhaust pipe as waste heat. Schemes aimed at recouping some of that energy include turbocharging, turbocompounding (exhaust-driven turbines geared to the crankshaft), and the steam generators investigated by both BMW and Honda. A promising approach also under development at BMW runs on the Seebeck effect that NASA used for decades to power spacecraft. Semiconductors heated by exhaust gas generate electricity during acceleration to supplement the re-gen energy recovered during braking. BMW believes that a thermoelectric generator (shown here) might improve mileage by five percent.