Speaker 1: Get in touch with technology with tex Stuff from Comen.
Speaker 1: Welcome to Text Stuff. I'm Jonathan Strickland, and today, once
Speaker 1: again I am graced by the presence of our automotive genius,
Speaker 1: Scott Benjamin Scott. Thanks for joining us on the show today.
Speaker 1: I was going, Jonathan, I'm I'm honored to be welcome back. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I am. I am trying to exert dominance because Scott
Speaker 1: actually is way more knowledgeable in the area of cars
Speaker 1: than I am. So I'm wearing my sunglasses to give
Speaker 1: me this kind of sense of coolness and a loofness.
Speaker 1: That's where you're in a tight shirt, your chest all
Speaker 1: put's right. Yeah, I gotta make myself look big. Yeah
Speaker 1: it's working. Yeah. Thanks. Thanks. I'm glad that I can.
Speaker 1: I can dominate and then therefore maintain my my lead position.
Speaker 1: But as always when I have a guest on, I
Speaker 1: like to ask my guest if there are any particular
Speaker 1: topics that trist them. And Scott, you picked an article
Speaker 1: a list really, that appeared in Forbes Online and thought
Speaker 1: maybe we should talk about and I couldn't agree more. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's say it's a topic that I think we're gonna
Speaker 1: hear a lot more about in the future near future
Speaker 1: as a matter of fact, um, connected cars. Yeah, and
Speaker 1: not just connected cars. But this particular article is about
Speaker 1: ten obstacles for connected cars. Because we've talked about connected
Speaker 1: cars on car stuff on our show before and in
Speaker 1: various ways. I mean kind of the slow progression up
Speaker 1: to the point where we're actually calling them connected cars now,
Speaker 1: because that's relatively new, right right, Because when you think
Speaker 1: connected car, I mean that definition seems a little fuzzy
Speaker 1: and vague, largely because we're still defining it. So you could,
Speaker 1: if you wanted to be, you know, kind of technical,
Speaker 1: you could say, oh, well, I've heard about entertainment systems
Speaker 1: that you can have in a car that connect to
Speaker 1: something like Pandora. Isn't that a connected car? But what
Speaker 1: we're really talking about here, and it's it's something that's
Speaker 1: not defined in that Forbes list. The Forbes list is
Speaker 1: pretty bare bones when you get down to it. But
Speaker 1: what we're really talking about here are cars that have
Speaker 1: some sort of persistent Internet connection, and usually they also
Speaker 1: have some sort of wireless local area network in the
Speaker 1: car itself so that your devices can link into that network. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that's right, and that network provides other benefits to the
Speaker 1: driver and and right now, I mean you can get
Speaker 1: vehicles that have elements of this right now. We're talking
Speaker 1: about future developments that are coming down the line. And
Speaker 1: you know, we'll get to all this as we go
Speaker 1: through the top ten list. But um, which, by the way,
Speaker 1: some of this we agree with and some of this
Speaker 1: we don't. Yeah, some of these we question how they
Speaker 1: could be labeled an obstacle. It makes me think that
Speaker 1: this list was originally just a list about connected cars,
Speaker 1: and that when they got to the point of trying
Speaker 1: to come up with a headline to describe it, this
Speaker 1: obstacles was the one that seemed like it was the
Speaker 1: best fit because maybe there's like seven real obstacles and
Speaker 1: the other three or just we're talking about connected cars.
Speaker 1: So you know, some of the things that that you
Speaker 1: know you may already see in cars. There are things
Speaker 1: like automatic notification of crashes or um, you know, when
Speaker 1: you're getting speeding alerts. You know, if you're you're in
Speaker 1: a rural area and you're going a little too fast,
Speaker 1: your car can actually tell you if you're going too
Speaker 1: quickly for that road. Things that you know, navigation systems
Speaker 1: have done in the past, you know, on their own,
Speaker 1: but those are add in devices, things that you you
Speaker 1: plug in. Now cars are doing that themselves, you know,
Speaker 1: with the with the built in navigation devices, so um,
Speaker 1: safety alerts, things like that. All all that stuff is
Speaker 1: stuff that we can see right now that is part
Speaker 1: of the connected car. But as you said, the definition
Speaker 1: is constantly changing every time uh something new comes out
Speaker 1: or some new advancement in UH in the design of
Speaker 1: the vehicle or the architecture of the electrical system of
Speaker 1: the vehicle. That's that's redefining what we consider a connected car.
Speaker 1: And this vehicle to vehicle communication that we're talking about,
Speaker 1: that's that's just now in the in the infancy state.
Speaker 1: I think we're not really there yet, but we're getting
Speaker 1: there quickly. And it's kind of and the way we
Speaker 1: described it on on car stuff is that, um, it's
Speaker 1: almost like the phone, the phones, you know, Like I mean,
Speaker 1: I can think seven eight years ago when I was
Speaker 1: using a flip phone and that was relatively new technology
Speaker 1: and we know we're just getting into smartphone area, you know,
Speaker 1: territory at that point. But um, I think how quickly
Speaker 1: things have developed past that point or since that point.
Speaker 1: In just the last five six years. That's the way
Speaker 1: cars are advancing. And I've got other stuff that I'm
Speaker 1: gonna site here as we go along. There was there
Speaker 1: was a particularly eye opening article in Popular Mechanics that
Speaker 1: we've covered in detail on our other show, and I
Speaker 1: will I'll mention elements of that as we go through.
Speaker 1: But some fascinated stuff that that even for me and Ben,
Speaker 1: you know, when we were we were going through this,
Speaker 1: we we talked about this all the time, you know,
Speaker 1: throughout the week, even not just on the show. Uh,
Speaker 1: some of the stuff was really eye opening. How quickly
Speaker 1: things are happening. Yeah, and it reminds me a lot
Speaker 1: of the discussion you and I had on the other
Speaker 1: episode of Tech Stuff you joined me on about self
Speaker 1: driving cars and how a lot of the elements that
Speaker 1: are necessary to make a self driving car work are
Speaker 1: finding their way into our vehicles today. Even though our
Speaker 1: vehicles are not themselves autonomous right there, there's some autonomous
Speaker 1: elements that are being worked in, whether it's something where
Speaker 1: the car is still under full driver control, or it's
Speaker 1: something where a computer takes over for like parking assists
Speaker 1: to that kind of stuff. So it's very similar to that,
Speaker 1: to that same sort of model, and without getting very
Speaker 1: specific about it. Today there's even some some some more
Speaker 1: news on that front as we go through this list today.
Speaker 1: So um, I can tell you that, you know, based
Speaker 1: on the other list, the the Popular Mechanics list, I
Speaker 1: know we're kind of getting into two different things here,
Speaker 1: but um, even based on what I read there, they're
Speaker 1: talking about it's advancing even faster than what we had
Speaker 1: talked about just a few weeks ago. It is amazing.
Speaker 1: How I mean, that's the one drawback about doing any
Speaker 1: sort of show about technology is that very quickly after
Speaker 1: you record it, it becomes obsolete and you need to
Speaker 1: do an update. Let's look into the actual list though,
Speaker 1: So the Forbes list, it opens up with the statement
Speaker 1: that cars take longer to design and build than smartphones,
Speaker 1: so the development cycle is very different. So you might
Speaker 1: say that if you look at smartphones in general, the
Speaker 1: the innovation is is constant, right, You're constantly getting updates.
Speaker 1: But even if you narrow it down to a specific
Speaker 1: model of phone, you're still talking about essentially an annual
Speaker 1: uh development cycle. You get a new iPhone every year.
Speaker 1: I think we can all appreciate this I mean, how
Speaker 1: often do you get, you know, the iPhone six and
Speaker 1: then the six S comes out a month later. And
Speaker 1: I'm bad at this naming, you know, devices, but you
Speaker 1: understand exactly what I mean by when we get home,
Speaker 1: the next one is on. You know, the television is
Speaker 1: being the greatest thing, and that's what people are waiting
Speaker 1: in line for tomorrow. Right in the United States, this
Speaker 1: is particularly tricky, right because a lot of us get
Speaker 1: our phones subsidized, and we get a contract that goes
Speaker 1: along with it. The contract baseline tends to be two years.
Speaker 1: So if you have a two year contract but your
Speaker 1: specific model of phone updates every year, you always feel
Speaker 1: like you're behind. Now I'm an Android user, and it's
Speaker 1: even worse for me because there's a new Android phone
Speaker 1: out multiple times a month, so I can't if I
Speaker 1: settle with one model, I do that knowing that it's
Speaker 1: going to be outpaced multiple times before I can upgrade again.
Speaker 1: And I suppose it's similar in that, you know, Let's
Speaker 1: say that you have a particular make of vehicle, you know,
Speaker 1: so there's a general Motors will make a certain type
Speaker 1: of vehicle and they will update it every year. Of course, Yeah,
Speaker 1: still call it the same thing. There's gonna be the
Speaker 1: two thousand twelve modle year, the two thirteen, and the
Speaker 1: thirteen is likely going to have more features and functions
Speaker 1: than the twelve, but they won't do a dramatic redesign,
Speaker 1: and you know for several years. I mean it maybe
Speaker 1: ten years away or whatever. But they're constantly working on
Speaker 1: new products. Well, this article says that car manufacturers work
Speaker 1: on five year cycles. Now I'm going to say that
Speaker 1: it's probably a little bit less than that. Typically, know
Speaker 1: that they've a while ago, you know, like maybe a
Speaker 1: couple of decades ago, you know, they were working on
Speaker 1: cycles that were seven years long. You know, they would
Speaker 1: start out with the sketches on the drawing board. You
Speaker 1: know that even the napkin, and you work up from
Speaker 1: there with the clay models, etcetera. Well, cad drawings and
Speaker 1: things like that have advanced to the point where that's
Speaker 1: shortened that you know, the amount of time, the lead
Speaker 1: up time I guess we'd be printing really cut it
Speaker 1: way back, because now if your prototype didn't work, you
Speaker 1: could just redesign it and print a new one exactly right.
Speaker 1: So the cycles are getting much much shorter. But I'm
Speaker 1: gonna say that five year cycles. That's if that's average,
Speaker 1: I would believe it. I know that some are working
Speaker 1: faster than others. So I've got this note here, and
Speaker 1: this comes from that other popular mechanics article, and there's
Speaker 1: a couple of these that will drop in here. But
Speaker 1: I'm I think I'm about to blow your much Jonathan
Speaker 1: pit Me. Yeah, you alluded to this before we came
Speaker 1: in here, and you said, you know what, I'm going
Speaker 1: to save this for the podcast, and I'm going to
Speaker 1: I'm gonna ask you a question. Now. This is um,
Speaker 1: this is McLaren. Alright, we're talking about So McLaren makes supercars,
Speaker 1: they make Formula one cars, they make you know, million
Speaker 1: dollar cars, I mean close to it anyways. Al Right,
Speaker 1: so McLaren has been in this in the supercar world
Speaker 1: since about nineteen nine two. They made a car called
Speaker 1: the F one about nine again, it was a million
Speaker 1: dollar car. They made like, you know, a hundred plus cars,
Speaker 1: not really that many of low production. These are the
Speaker 1: ones that are like handmade, that's that's right. And now
Speaker 1: it's one of the many that are handmade. Right. But
Speaker 1: since they've kind of been out of the game, but
Speaker 1: then they came back again, and I want to say
Speaker 1: it was around two I'll find the number here, but
Speaker 1: I think it was around two thousand eleven when they
Speaker 1: came back. Uh. Yeah, they jumped back in with the
Speaker 1: model called the twelve seed supercar again, so the car
Speaker 1: for the streets. But they had been building Formula one
Speaker 1: technology all along, and they've got something that they call
Speaker 1: a skunk work. And the skunk Works are outside of London,
Speaker 1: and that's kind of their uh experimental area, tough secret
Speaker 1: research and development. Lucky skunk Works is probably the most famous,
Speaker 1: but there are several companies that do this still thing. Yeah,
Speaker 1: exactly right, and this is Formula one for them, right,
Speaker 1: They're interested in Formula one technology and they build road
Speaker 1: cars there as well. I'm gonna ask you this question. Okay,
Speaker 1: so they they develop new technology and test new technology there.
Speaker 1: How often do you think that they test and develop
Speaker 1: new technology out of this skunk works facility? Oh? Okay, Well,
Speaker 1: all right. If you're talking about a company that is
Speaker 1: uh largely concerned with designing cars to compete in and
Speaker 1: win races, I would imagine who have to be Let's say,
Speaker 1: I'm gonna I'm gonna go super conservative. I'm gonna say
Speaker 1: eighteen months. Eighteen months, is your guest. Right, here's where
Speaker 1: your mind is about to be blong, all right. McLaren,
Speaker 1: the vaunted maker of supercars and Formula one racers, long
Speaker 1: been known for nimble development. Right at this skunk works
Speaker 1: outside of London, developers strive to engineer and test a
Speaker 1: new piece of technology every twenty minutes. That that's incredibly
Speaker 1: aggressive twenty minutes. Now. When I read that, I could
Speaker 1: not believe it. I mean, it's it's predible how quickly
Speaker 1: they do. They say that a new race car can
Speaker 1: differ by as much as from the race car they
Speaker 1: fielded the previous year. That's how fast, and you only
Speaker 1: have similarity to the previous model. Is is phenomenal exactly
Speaker 1: right now. They're also building, you know, these road cars,
Speaker 1: so I'm sure that a lot of that is the
Speaker 1: Formula one technology, right However, they've been introducing a new
Speaker 1: car every year for every model years since two thousand eleven,
Speaker 1: so they're quickly building these cars fast like this. And
Speaker 1: the way they do it is that they have completely
Speaker 1: stopped starting with the CAD set up and all that.
Speaker 1: They didn't even start there. They start with a human
Speaker 1: in a simulator and that's how they begin the whole
Speaker 1: process and they get feedback from that and it's so fast.
Speaker 1: I mean, it's just the the most rapid way to
Speaker 1: do the whole thing, and they make adjustments as they
Speaker 1: go and that's how they're able to do it so quickly.
Speaker 1: And the thing is they say they don't waste millions
Speaker 1: on prototyping. This guy, Jeff McGrath from from McClaren Applied Technology,
Speaker 1: sees the vice president there and he says that we
Speaker 1: can design the car is the future before we even
Speaker 1: begin machining parts. So they don't even prototype parts. They
Speaker 1: start with the simulator and a person and that's how
Speaker 1: they are able to quickly do this. Now it's not
Speaker 1: just for these million dollars supercars, which is exciting news
Speaker 1: for all of us because I'm not in this this
Speaker 1: arena to buy a car, but it's exciting for you
Speaker 1: and I because it's not just for these million dollars supercars.
Speaker 1: It's He says that I hope this time next year
Speaker 1: will be free to name some of the passenger car
Speaker 1: companies that are using our technology. So he's saying we're
Speaker 1: sharing this, we can't really talk about it right now.
Speaker 1: So some of these these big manufacturers, like I'm gonna guess, um,
Speaker 1: you know, the big three here in the United States, maybe,
Speaker 1: um who knows Pougeot or Mercedes or whoever they're they're
Speaker 1: probably working with them, and they're developing technology just that quickly.
Speaker 1: We're gonna see advances and cars way faster than we
Speaker 1: ever had before, starting right now. So that gap that
Speaker 1: is listed as an obstacle may not really be an
Speaker 1: obstacle for well, it might not be an obstacle now,
Speaker 1: and it certainly won't be an obstacle perpetually. I think.
Speaker 1: Also another objection I have to that particular item, not
Speaker 1: really objection, but maybe maybe a note a criticism perhaps
Speaker 1: is that it doesn't really take into account the aftermarket either,
Speaker 1: And the aftermarket could develop much more quickly because you
Speaker 1: know you've you've got once you know the constraints you
Speaker 1: have to work in for whatever model of car you're
Speaker 1: developing your stuff for, Uh, you can really innovate very quickly.
Speaker 1: And so some of these connected cars systems may not
Speaker 1: be fully integrated with the entire vehicle. They could be
Speaker 1: a kind of like a module, like an entertainment system
Speaker 1: that you could take out and you would still get
Speaker 1: a lot of the functionality you would get in a
Speaker 1: car that was built to be a connected vehicle from
Speaker 1: the start. Not everything, obviously, anything that that ties directly
Speaker 1: into the car systems will probably be a little more problematic,
Speaker 1: but at least like the entertainment, navigation, uh, WiFi access,
Speaker 1: that kind of stuff, you could build that in. It
Speaker 1: reminds me a little bit of open source technology, the
Speaker 1: way that that that whole thing works out. I mean,
Speaker 1: I'm sure you're way better at this than I am,
Speaker 1: but open source the way I understand it is that
Speaker 1: you know, you take someone's base idea and you build
Speaker 1: on that and they allow you to because that's how
Speaker 1: you get this rapid development of ideas, right, I mean
Speaker 1: quickly um evolves. Yeah, it's the idea is that by
Speaker 1: opening it up to the crowd, you allow for much
Speaker 1: more rapid innovation. There's there's a guy here and I've
Speaker 1: got a note, another note, and I promise we won't
Speaker 1: go as along on the next few as we do
Speaker 1: with that one, because that one I was excited about.
Speaker 1: But um, there's a note here that I want I
Speaker 1: want to talk about Ellen Musk at some point. So
Speaker 1: when it feels right to talk about open sourcing again,
Speaker 1: just tell me, and that's when I'll hit you with
Speaker 1: this other thing from ellenor Ellen Sean, I shouldn't say Ellen.
Speaker 1: It's Ellen, Yes, the genius behind Tesla and SpaceX. Uh,
Speaker 1: someone that we've chatted about several times on this podcast,
Speaker 1: and I'm sure we'll continue to talk about it. Well,
Speaker 1: let's talk about the second thing on the list, which
Speaker 1: was that new safety laws will dictate connectivity. This was
Speaker 1: one of the items that the way it was worded
Speaker 1: on the list made me question of whether or not
Speaker 1: it was an obstacle. I guess it could be, depending
Speaker 1: on your point of view. Uh. Specifically, they they elaborated
Speaker 1: on this point by saying that in two thousand and fifteen,
Speaker 1: all cars in Europe will have to be equipped with
Speaker 1: a system that is named E call E C A
Speaker 1: l L, which alerts emergency vehicles to crashes and location data.
Speaker 1: So if you're in a really bad crash you're not
Speaker 1: necessarily responsive, it will automatically send out essentially a kind
Speaker 1: of a distress call, and so emergency vehicles can respond
Speaker 1: to the emergency fantastic. Yeah. Now they say that this
Speaker 1: will that they consider this an obstacle to the connected car.
Speaker 1: I think of this as a driver to the connected car,
Speaker 1: not a driver behind the right the steering wheel, but
Speaker 1: something that is driving us towards this connected car. Because
Speaker 1: it's a requirement, it's a mandate. It's something that you know,
Speaker 1: like GMS on Star will already do. But that's an
Speaker 1: add on feature. I mean, it's it's built in the cars,
Speaker 1: I understand. But it's a subscription service, right, so I
Speaker 1: understand what you're saying. I think it. I think it
Speaker 1: is more of a driver than anything else. There's also
Speaker 1: another thing called B call that is going to be
Speaker 1: be prevalent in new cars, and that's that's for breakdown.
Speaker 1: So so E call for emergencies, BE call for breakdowns
Speaker 1: makes sense, right. But the cool thing about BE call
Speaker 1: is that if you do break down, there's an automatic
Speaker 1: service call that's made with details about where you are
Speaker 1: and what part of the vehicles having trouble, what exactly
Speaker 1: is happening, you know, can it be fixed on the
Speaker 1: side of the road or does it require a tow truck?
Speaker 1: You know, are interested to call you into town or
Speaker 1: or back home or wherever you have to go. So yeah,
Speaker 1: I think that's um, you know, along the lines of these,
Speaker 1: you know, the next step after that would be like
Speaker 1: a concier concierge service. It's tough for me to say,
Speaker 1: but you know someone that's at a call center that
Speaker 1: can actually help you find, um, you know, stuff that's
Speaker 1: not critical like you know, these emergency call you know,
Speaker 1: emergencies or breakdowns, but more like if you want a
Speaker 1: restaurant or a hotel or a pharmacy, and you can
Speaker 1: call at will and say, you know, I've got a
Speaker 1: subscription to this for you know, six months or a
Speaker 1: year or whatever, and I'm looking for a local restaurant
Speaker 1: to serves Chinese food. Um, what do you recommend? Yeah,
Speaker 1: that reminds me of the time with my wife and
Speaker 1: I took a really long road trip and we didn't
Speaker 1: have a hotel arranged because we didn't know where we
Speaker 1: were going to be by the time it was time
Speaker 1: to turn in. So that would have been a very
Speaker 1: useful service in that in that case. Yes, you know,
Speaker 1: at the touch of a button, you can get all
Speaker 1: of that. I mean, this this E call, the be call,
Speaker 1: the you know, the the possible concierge service, that type
Speaker 1: of thing. I mean, all that I do see as
Speaker 1: being part of this whole connected car thing because you
Speaker 1: have to have connections in order to be able to
Speaker 1: make that work, right, right, That's that's what That's what
Speaker 1: the the on Star service relies on. Right now, why
Speaker 1: not build that into other makes and models of vehicles
Speaker 1: as well? Yeah, And I think when I think of
Speaker 1: safety laws being an obstacle to connectivity, I think more
Speaker 1: on the opposite side of this, not so much something
Speaker 1: that is required to send out a message, but rather
Speaker 1: what about the potential for driver distraction? So, in other words,
Speaker 1: there might be laws that come out. We we often
Speaker 1: see this in technology, right, We see where the technology
Speaker 1: outpaces the law happens all the time, where we developed
Speaker 1: these really cool tools or toys or whatever that just
Speaker 1: when when laws were made, it didn't take that into
Speaker 1: account because it wasn't a thing when the law was formed.
Speaker 1: And then you suddenly realize, oh wait, this thing is
Speaker 1: just different enough from everything else that we need to
Speaker 1: figure out how the law applies in this case. So
Speaker 1: if we have connected cars that have potential distractions to drivers,
Speaker 1: I could see safety laws coming in that would affect
Speaker 1: whether or not a car could be connected. But that's
Speaker 1: a that's a different angle than what was in the list,
Speaker 1: And you're jump ahead on the list because there's there's
Speaker 1: a bit about distracted drivers later on. I've got a
Speaker 1: specific question for you as we get to that too. Excellent. Well,
Speaker 1: I look forward to being asked that question. I bet
Speaker 1: you do. The next one, and this one, I think
Speaker 1: is probably where an open source discussion can probably come
Speaker 1: in as well. The carmakers need mobile partners, which means
Speaker 1: that auto manufacturers obviously they're not the same company that
Speaker 1: provides this connectivity service, right, And yeah, this is gonna
Speaker 1: be strange, Yeah, because someone's got to be in charge
Speaker 1: of delivering the connection to that automobile. If you've got
Speaker 1: a cell phone receiver essentially built into your car, that
Speaker 1: has to be working with some carrier somewhere. Yeah, this
Speaker 1: is this is really weird to me because we're talking
Speaker 1: about car subscriptions now at this point, and of course
Speaker 1: we all know you know that that there's the the
Speaker 1: satellite radio subscriptions are on Star or something like that, Right,
Speaker 1: I understand all that, But we're talking about like being
Speaker 1: able to bundle phone calls, streaming, music, navigation all into one,
Speaker 1: one service where they'll be able to charge you X
Speaker 1: number dollars per month. And let's say that you know
Speaker 1: you want to add video conferencing, Well that's an additional
Speaker 1: five dollars a month, but sure we can do that
Speaker 1: for you as well. I mean, why would you want
Speaker 1: to a video conference in your car? You may think
Speaker 1: that's funny, but somebody who who is a salesperson or
Speaker 1: works out of the car, they would find that invaluable.
Speaker 1: I mean, it would just be would be fantastic for
Speaker 1: them to be able to do something like that. It
Speaker 1: would be a complete office right there on wheels. And
Speaker 1: I'm sure that people are gonna be excited about this.
Speaker 1: Other people are going to say, well, this is this
Speaker 1: is a bad, bad idea. I mean, I can imagine
Speaker 1: YouTube series coming up with this sort of thing. If
Speaker 1: you have a system in your car where you can
Speaker 1: do essentially a video call, then it's not a huge
Speaker 1: jump to think of a live YouTube broadcast from behind
Speaker 1: the wheel. And you think about all those those car
Speaker 1: shows where it's someone behind the wheel of the car
Speaker 1: occasionally looking over and chatting to a camera as they
Speaker 1: navigate the car, especially once the do car reviews like
Speaker 1: c NET. It's a great example. Then I could see
Speaker 1: that becoming a thing where you have video series of
Speaker 1: people behind the wheel. It doesn't even have to necessarily
Speaker 1: be a car centric video series. That's just the gimmick
Speaker 1: that gets people into the show, and it's built in.
Speaker 1: The manufacturer will create this for you. It'll it'll have
Speaker 1: the camera points right at the face of the driver.
Speaker 1: And to be able to do this, because if they're
Speaker 1: saying video conferencing, it's not gonna be something you're gonna
Speaker 1: have to set up like the GoPro camera up in
Speaker 1: the corner of the car or something. Right, it's going
Speaker 1: to be there and ready to go. So um yeah,
Speaker 1: there's gonna be uh, it's gonna be probably some new
Speaker 1: laws that go along with this as well. Right, So
Speaker 1: now you also have some other questions, right like if
Speaker 1: you have like who do you partner with? What? What
Speaker 1: manufacture partners with which carrier and and once you make
Speaker 1: that decision, you're kind of locked in. It's not like
Speaker 1: you're not going to find a car necessarily where it's
Speaker 1: going to work on any carrier. I mean, I guess
Speaker 1: they could technically build in transmitters for all the different
Speaker 1: carriers and then you make a choice. But it's far
Speaker 1: more likely that the cost for this development is going
Speaker 1: to be spread across multiple UH entities, So you would
Speaker 1: have uh, you know, a car manufacturer partner specifically with
Speaker 1: Sprint or a T and T. Now this is interesting
Speaker 1: because you you just brought up something that I hadn't
Speaker 1: thought about. But what if you were interested in Volkswagen
Speaker 1: and they their partnered with Sprint, but you don't like
Speaker 1: Sprint service or it's not available in your area. And
Speaker 1: then you think, well, I really want a Volkswagen, but
Speaker 1: I also need this service because I rely on this,
Speaker 1: you know, and I'm in this area that just simply
Speaker 1: doesn't have good coverage or whatever. I'm gonna have to
Speaker 1: go with the General Motors product because they've partnered with
Speaker 1: a T and T and I've got better service there.
Speaker 1: It does seem pretty weird to think that a person's
Speaker 1: choice of vehicle could depend upon who there their service
Speaker 1: provider is for their smartphone. And I don't know if
Speaker 1: they would actually change that or not, if it would
Speaker 1: just kind of sway them one way or the other.
Speaker 1: Like if I had these two cars in mind, yet
Speaker 1: this one has this provider and this one has the
Speaker 1: other provider. Maybe it might push you in the direction
Speaker 1: that you weren't leaning before, or maybe you just end
Speaker 1: up resigning yourself to having a car that has features
Speaker 1: that you simply can't access, which I know would irritate me,
Speaker 1: like I to think that I'm essentially paying to have
Speaker 1: these features that I can't access. And we'll get more
Speaker 1: into how this could become a complication and a little
Speaker 1: bit further down the list. But this is kind of
Speaker 1: where that open source approach UH kind of fits in
Speaker 1: because another element of open source is this idea that
Speaker 1: no one has uh proprietary ownership of the the the
Speaker 1: base code beyond a certain level, so that one you're
Speaker 1: able to build upon this depending upon the licensing for
Speaker 1: the open source material UH and and the benefit of
Speaker 1: it is that you don't have this lockdown ecosystem, whereas
Speaker 1: in these other approaches where you have a specific partnership
Speaker 1: between a manufacturer and a carrier, it's locked down to
Speaker 1: a certain experience. If you don't like that service, if
Speaker 1: you don't if if the things you own are not
Speaker 1: compatible with it, you're out of luck. Open source is
Speaker 1: kind of taking the opposite of UH philosophy in some ways,
Speaker 1: I mean, I'm kind of muddying the waters a little bit.
Speaker 1: But ideally, with open source, you have an approach where
Speaker 1: you can arrive to a standard that can apply across
Speaker 1: multiple UH like the whole spectrum, so that you're not
Speaker 1: forcing the consumer to pick one particular approach. They still
Speaker 1: have ultimate flexibility and choice. See, could buy the vehicle
Speaker 1: you want, but maybe with limited with limited features. Yeah, okay,
Speaker 1: got it. Yeah, So that's that's one way I would
Speaker 1: put that. And I think of this also with like
Speaker 1: the connected home. So you probably have heard about appliances
Speaker 1: like you could have your fridge and your stove connected,
Speaker 1: and that your fridge has all the information about all
Speaker 1: the foods that you have stored in there, and your stove.
Speaker 1: You know, you end up sending a message to your
Speaker 1: fridge saying, based upon the stuff that is inside of you,
Speaker 1: figure out a recipe for dinner and send a message
Speaker 1: to the stove to start preheating. But in order to
Speaker 1: do that, you have to have all of these appliances
Speaker 1: from the same provider, the same company. And didn't say
Speaker 1: bad news, You're gonna have hot dog buns mustard and
Speaker 1: that's it. Yeah. For me would be like, well, it's
Speaker 1: a six pack of Jolt Cola and a bottle of catchup.
Speaker 1: It's said, yeah, Joe Cola. Really well you know, yeah,
Speaker 1: you know school. Yeah, alright. So our next one is that, uh,
Speaker 1: this one I actually really do think of as a
Speaker 1: true obstacle, which is that car dealers will need to
Speaker 1: be tech savvy, that sales people will have to add
Speaker 1: the network capabilities of the car to their knowledge base
Speaker 1: when they're trying to sell a car to a customer. Yeah,
Speaker 1: dealers go through a lot of training to sell cars
Speaker 1: that are out there right now, and they're getting more
Speaker 1: and more advanced, of course, I mean, uh, cars are
Speaker 1: already very complex. I mean when you when you take
Speaker 1: it a take a look at a new vehicle and
Speaker 1: the level of complexity it has versus a vehicle that
Speaker 1: was sold even seven eight years ago. UM. I've got
Speaker 1: an example that I've mentioned a couple of times on
Speaker 1: our show on Car Stuff that, Um, I have a
Speaker 1: two thousand five Honda Civic SI and it's a hatchback
Speaker 1: and it's the I mean, okay, it's it's the SI model.
Speaker 1: It was kind of their sporty version. You had a
Speaker 1: lot of stuff on it. But when I look at that,
Speaker 1: it's extremely basic compared to a new vehicle. I've I've
Speaker 1: said this before when I get I've sat in new vehicles,
Speaker 1: you know, vehicles on the lot, just kind of poking around,
Speaker 1: seeing what's out there, and it's as if I'm stepping
Speaker 1: into a jet fighter. I mean, it looks like the
Speaker 1: cockpit of a of an airplane. It's incredible the way
Speaker 1: they've advanced from you know, just two thousand five to
Speaker 1: now it's ten that's ten years, and I know that's
Speaker 1: even been faster than that. But um, they can be
Speaker 1: really really complex and complicated and and confusing for the customer.
Speaker 1: And if the dealer doesn't describe that right away, doesn't
Speaker 1: describe to you how everything works, you're gonna be the
Speaker 1: one driving around the block with your left hand turn
Speaker 1: signal on all the time and I know how to
Speaker 1: turn it off. Or how many times have you seen
Speaker 1: someone with the you know, the flashers on the hazard
Speaker 1: lights and they have no idea how to turn them
Speaker 1: off or other features. Or you get into a rental
Speaker 1: car and you spend the first ten minutes wondering how
Speaker 1: you turn the headlights on. Yes, it happens. I mean,
Speaker 1: especially if it's a dark lot. I mean you're you're
Speaker 1: really you've got to really familiarize yourself with the with
Speaker 1: the controls in order to be able to function in
Speaker 1: that environment correctly. And that's important. I mean it's a
Speaker 1: safety issue. And at nighttime. You know, if you if
Speaker 1: it becomes nighttime quickly and you haven't switched your lights
Speaker 1: on and the interior is not illuminated and you have
Speaker 1: a difficulty finding switches that you need to find, that
Speaker 1: can be a safety issue. And dealers need to uh
Speaker 1: definitely need to work on this. I mean I know
Speaker 1: that they're they're already doing a lot. I mean dealers
Speaker 1: are well trained, but um, with the way that cars
Speaker 1: are advancing now, it's almost like they're gonna have to
Speaker 1: go to monthly classes to keep up with what's happening. Right,
Speaker 1: and you never know what the text savvy level of
Speaker 1: your customer is going to be. Right, So if you
Speaker 1: have a customer come in who is like a someone
Speaker 1: who writes for Wired and they know this inside and
Speaker 1: now you need to know at least enough to have
Speaker 1: a decent conversation with this person that they have detailed
Speaker 1: questions you need to be able to answer, but you
Speaker 1: also need to be able to help the customer who
Speaker 1: is like, you know, someone's grandmother who doesn't have any
Speaker 1: knowledge of any of this stuff. And how do you
Speaker 1: how do you make something as complicated as some of
Speaker 1: these systems makes sense to some boyle, you just touched
Speaker 1: on my other example because I have elderly grandparents and
Speaker 1: they recently get this. Neither one of them drive, but
Speaker 1: they well one is recently deceased, but um, they purchased
Speaker 1: a new vehicle when neither one of them could drive,
Speaker 1: so other people could drive them to places, right, a
Speaker 1: brand new vehicle, So this is it's a little funny
Speaker 1: to think of, but it's of course it's a Buick,
Speaker 1: and my grandmother love Buick. So um. The thing is,
Speaker 1: this newer vehicle had so many buttons and and small
Speaker 1: type on the on the on the buttons themselves that
Speaker 1: she couldn't really understand what, you know, all that stuff
Speaker 1: was because she was accustomed driving a car that was
Speaker 1: maybe five or six years older, and everything was where
Speaker 1: she knew it was. You know, it wass very um
Speaker 1: intuitive to her. Now this new one. I mean it's
Speaker 1: it's like it's again, it's just too complex for them.
Speaker 1: And it's not just elderly people, it's it's just anybody
Speaker 1: that maybe doesn't have the experience with new cars versus
Speaker 1: you know, driving an older vehicle like what I'm driving. Um,
Speaker 1: I would have trouble kind of learning my way around
Speaker 1: a new car. But that's all part of it. You
Speaker 1: have to you have to learn this new system. And
Speaker 1: that's exactly why the dealers. The dealer role is so
Speaker 1: critical at this point. And with all the electronic features,
Speaker 1: you're gonna have one area like one let's see one
Speaker 1: screen area that's a touch screen that's going to be
Speaker 1: able to do so many different things. It's not like
Speaker 1: you can just look at it and understand what it
Speaker 1: can do. You have to be able to dig through
Speaker 1: that the different levels and realize what it's capable of doing. UM,
Speaker 1: I don't know if I can. I'm probably overstating this,
Speaker 1: but they've gone real high tech and we need to
Speaker 1: keep up with it. That's yeah. So this this really
Speaker 1: could be an obstacle. I mean obstacle in just the
Speaker 1: sense of widespread adoption. If you can't intelligently explain the
Speaker 1: the usefulness of these systems, then how can you expect
Speaker 1: them to be adopted? That the transition from old car
Speaker 1: to new car, old tech to new tech is very
Speaker 1: difficult for some people, and they've got to really be
Speaker 1: up on things to do that. I mean, I cover
Speaker 1: technology and even I mean I'm reaching that age where
Speaker 1: there's some new tech that comes out and I'm like, what, Well, Scott,
Speaker 1: you know, this conversation has gone on really quite a
Speaker 1: long time. So if you don't mind, Scott, I think
Speaker 1: we're gonna just uh snip the episode right here, but
Speaker 1: we'll rejoin shortly. Sounds like a good plan. Excellent. So, guys, uh,
Speaker 1: if you want to get hold of Scott, if there's
Speaker 1: something that you just have to know about cars, Scott,
Speaker 1: where would they go to learn more about the stuff
Speaker 1: you do? Any kind of burning question? Maybe you should
Speaker 1: contact me via email car stuff at how stuff works
Speaker 1: dot com. But you could also check out the website
Speaker 1: I guess you know the stuff site that we have
Speaker 1: that's car Stuff show dot com. It's an excellent site, excellent,
Speaker 1: excellent stuff on there. And usually you know Facebook, Twitter,
Speaker 1: that's car Stuff hs W, so accessible just like you
Speaker 1: are fantastic and guys, if you want to get in
Speaker 1: touch with me, that address is tech stuff at how
Speaker 1: stuff works dot com. You can find me on Facebook, Twitter,
Speaker 1: and Tumbler with the handle tech stuff hs W. What's
Speaker 1: out to again really soon? For more on this and
Speaker 1: thousands of other topics, does it have stuff works dot
Speaker 1: com