Car Tech We Worship (And Take For Granted)
The world of automotive tech is one that consistently manages to blow our minds. Period. And yet, we pretty much take all of it for granted on a tri-hourly basis. Just think about it for a moment. There are literally cars out there, on the road, right now, that can effectively drive themselves, parking without a human-being needing to turn the wheel, tell what the other cars on the road are doing and even update themselves – wirelessly – while you are all tucked up[ in bed and sleeping. We know we’re old enough to remember a time before broadband was a thing and Nokia was the big fish of the day, but these modern technologies are awesome.
However, all that said and done, we’re not gonna focus on the wild and obscene advances in tech right now. Instead, we’re going to delve into the common car features that we tend to dismiss without realising when we really should be worshipping them each time we step into our cars. So, without further ado, here are some technologies we want to say thank you to:
- Heated Seats
These are nothing new. In fact, they’ve been around for quite some time. But they’re still totally badass. There’s just nothing quite as comforting as that feeling of heated leather on your backside and lower back, especially when it’s winter. And it’s not just about warming your buttocks up. You can keep your takeaway pizza warm too.
- Adaptive Cruise Control
It’s modern and it’s amazing. It doesn’t matter what car or model you might be driving, all ACCs use some sort of radar-slash-camera system to study the road ahead, focussing on the vehicles in front so that they can adjust your speed accordingly. That’s bonkers. When cruise control was first introduced, it was okay, but you still had to be totally alert. Now it speeds and slows down for you.
- Parylene Conformal Coating
Chances are, you’ve never heard of this little beauty, but para-coat technologies are the unsung heroes of your car’s health and longevity. With automotive technology advancing quicker than anything else – ever- we need something to protect these technologies so that they remain fault-free and awesome. That’s what parylene coatings do. Digital displays, emissions sensors and systems, fuel cells, monitoring systems – all of it.
- Reversing Cameras
Once upon a time, we had to turn around in our seats and crane our necks in order to safely reverse and not crash into something behind us. That’s not to say we don’t still think this is a good idea, but backup cameras have made it a whole lot less necessary. With HD monitors right in front of you, you can now do all the reversing you want without having to bum shuffle or contort yourself.
- Automatic Boots
Whoever invented the automatic boot-lifting-tech-thingy is a genius, by which we mean they must have once left the grocery store with their hands full while it was raining and thought, “this sucks.” And, voila, the foot-activated boot lifting system was born. Genius.