AI Really, REALLY Wants to Be in Your Next Car | Talking Cars #435
Hi and welcome back to the talking cars podcast I’m Alex Nik I’m Kelly Funkhouser and I’m Jake Fisher so as you might be able to see and hear we are not at our home base at the track in Colchester we are actually at CES in Los Vegas which is the Consumer Electronics
Show right so not traditionally thought of as a car type of event like TVs and SmartWatches and things but Jake why are we here it’s a great question so certainly you know kind of our our M always kind of going into the auto shows and CES has really kind of become a big
Auto Show and mobility and smart things and all these kinds of things when it comes to that so it really makes sense for us to be here why are we what is our task here well here’s the kind of secret about CS a lot of this stuff isn’t real
A lot of it is smok and mirrors I mean if we were just talking there’s like literally smoke and mirrors and look literally that’s that so but there is some real stuff here there are some trends that are going to change the way we interface with our vehicles and the
Way our vehicles are and we’re trying to really kind of distill what the good stuff is from the kind of the not really and what you might actually be able to see in the near future rather than 2030 2040 things like that Dre right exactly so okay so we we’ll eventually we’ll get
To the themes and what we saw but Kelly first what didn’t we see things that we’ve heard about in the last you know couple years or even longer and is kind of like quietly absent from the show this year I don’t know if it’s quietly absent or noticeably absent yeah well
For several years now we’ve been hearing all about autonomous vehicles self-driving cars we had the Ubers and the Whos and the Cru and all of those and they aren’t here we don’t have Crews we don’t have weo there are no booths there no demos showing these so noticeably absent are the self-driving
Cars I think we’ve kind of moved on and and away from that and we have new and and and different things to talk about well well I’ll say I mean there’s a little bit of that you know there’s a couple of things it’s not totally gone
But but it’s like to your point it’s like we used to come here and it was like you know when my kids have they’ll I don’t even need to teach them how to drive because there’ll be no driving everything will be driving itself and like yeah it’s twisted because now the
Things that look like self-driving cars they have steering wheels in them so I mean I think we’ve we’ve transited a little bit there there’s going to be a place for kind of autonomous vehicles but yeah it’s not going to be that tital wave that we kind of were told that was
Going to be right and and Kelly as our you know kind of expert in vehicle technology quickly why is that why aren’t we seeing more that yeah I think over the past maybe year or two we’ve kind of learned there’s not necessarily a huge business model for them right
Consumers are never going to be able to afford them these vehicles even the ones that are you know not truly autonomous cars have several hundred thousands of dollars of technology in them that’s not something you or I at least on my paycheck can go out and buy today right
Um and so that means that these are going to be meant to be more you know Fleet or business oriented vehicles and again is that demand actually there right right now that several companies have launched is the ridership there is the safety proven um I think there’s
Still a lot of questions that are being answered um and especially about the safety right we you know that the the cruise vehicle have been pulled off the streets for now for the foreseeable future when will they come back will they come back will they come back in
The same way we don’t know and so it’s we’re kind of on a pause right now to see where that goes abolutely okay so that’s what we didn’t really see so much of right but getting into what we did see right there are some big trends so
Kind of the first one that you heard a lot about even before we arrived at the show right was ai ai everything right so not only is that cars but that’s expanding into other electronics and everything it’s kind of dominating the show so what if we see Jake start with
You you know with AI and cars all right well I mean if I have to read software defined Mobility one more time I’m just gonna going to hurl honestly so no but the point is is that obviously a lot of people were talking about AI everyone’s
Kind of playing with chat TBT and all these kinds of things where it’s very conversational and you know for anyone who has an experience talking to a Siri or an Alexa or something like that compared to the horrible voice controls that a lot of us experience in cars
There’s a big gap so there’s kind of this hope that maybe generative Ai and more that conversational language can change the way we’re interfacing with our vehicles and of course we see these giant screens in our cars maybe they can make that a little bit better so that’s
The hope and I think we’re seeing a little bit of that but not nearly as fast as I would hope it would be yeah yeah I think we saw some positive examples and maybe some less promising examples of these things I don’t know what did you see Kelly right so you know
Again a lot of this is still to come we’re not seeing it in the cars today um we have seen some improvements over the past several years with the voice controls in vehicles you don’t necessarily for most cars that is have to use set phrases and in a set order
And know the special language to use the voice command system we’ve moved towards more of the natural language processing which in a way is AI right it’s trying to interpret what you’re saying in a natural way and and to to that point you know it’s really interesting because to
A lot of people it’s like oh came out like AI just was invented yesterday and the truth is that car companies and a lot of products have been using this type of technology for a long time and lot ofest on your phone has been using it for abolutely a while great that’s a
Good example just in a different application right totally I mean for me at the vehicle level you know here at the show I think I was really excited going into the Mercedes Booth to really see what they were going to do with their next version of the software and
The cars right and kind of our experience was this like generative AI demonstration and it kind of just created like a pretty background on the the screen and wasn’t really of any use or utility right yeah there there was that one area where so like album art
Gets me because like I’m sitting there driving and and I got to admit I like to know the name of the song that’s playing and who right but the picture of the album not as much use the picture of the album this big on the screen not as much
Use and then I guess the Mercedes-Benz who were very proud that they would actually make the album Arc bigger by pretending to guess what else they would draw outside of the album AR not super useful when you’re driving a car that’s a great example right so we’re seeing
This idea of using Ai and generative AI in vehicles but are they using it in the right way that’s actually useful and wanted by consumers maybe not so much I went to a couple AB boost this morning and some of the more promising ideas using AI that I saw were really related
Almost to the the navigation system right so currently most map apps can do you know find me a a charging station or fuel station or or restaurant whatever either near where I am now or near my destination that I have set well what if and what we saw today is this idea of
The AI can see you know use the range that is real time in your car and say well you know maybe about halfway is where you’re going to get the more optimal charging speeds because you might want to go from 20% to 80% rather than wait till you’re totally depleted
It can kind of predict all right also know based on you and your history you like this type of a restaurant I found you a fast charger that has that restaurant in about this many miles along the way not just here or there but kind of at that time when you really
Want it so that’s some of the more promising stuff again it’s not here yet but hopefully that’s more useful than making album Mar the size of the entire car this is the job right now of my teenage son I’m like find me a Dunkin Donuts along the
Way figure what went to order it yeah I mean it’s a complex thing you’re exactly right because you go and everyone probably has this experience with any type of GPS find me a gas station or find me some place to eat and they’re like oh the closest one is here you hit
The the destination oh do a U-turn cuz you passed it like that’s not helpful right exactly and it’s just like one list of a bunch of gas stations and like you’ve initiated the process with the voice controls right but then you kind of got to go in and like figure out
Where they are is is it three miles along the way or three miles into town yeah right exactly um one thing I saw that was pretty promising and a little bit more Down to Earth was actually at the BMW Booth right so they are again using this generative AI large language
Models right bringing that into the car um and they’re starting a little cautiously which is actually good to hear they’re not just gungho on on we can do everything and we’re going to do it they’re actually using it to let you talk to your car about the owner’s
Manual right which is actually something that we always are telling people yeah check your owner’s manual right so this makes it easier you’re in the car and you’re confused about something in real real time in that moment you can say hey whatever what are some interesting
Features of this car this car has many interesting features such as the BMW curve to display an augmented view tell me about so there’s an important Nuance to this specific example and I experienced this funnily enough this morning as well so with chat GPT if anyone has played around with it I know
We have when you put in a question right you can get sometimes bizarre answers that either might not be correct or might be correct about maybe a different car right so what we saw today was one of the suppliers is actually making sure that that type of vehicle specific
Information the owner’s manual and things like that are stored locally rather than the they mention they did mention that and that’s why they started with own more speed up that that processing time as well because now you don’t have to have the cloud the data so
That’s an important piece of of using Ai and language um in the vehicle to know that actually you’re not going to get some Bonkers off the wall so so again it’s like we’re we’re we’re not necessarily testing things right now but it’s super helpful for us to figure out
What kind of a test program do we want to have in three years because we’re going to see different things and and I got to I got to say I mean Kelly you did this amazing presentation called what’s what’s that beep yeah I love this firstage and basically it’s I mean
Probably everyone has had this experience right your car is going beep beep beep and you’re like what is that and you turn off this system and you check this and you’re going down this list trying to figure out what the beep is so maybe in the future it’s ABM W
What’s that be that and they’ll tell just why don’t you just tell me what the beep is right right and then tell me if that’s a problem right is that a I need to pull over I mean think about about it like check engine light right I mean
Check engine light again maybe in your BMW too but but it’s like you know and and for those of you know there’s a there’s a code reader and you can put the code reader in and then you could figure it out so how about the check engine light goes on what’s the problem
BMW can I keep driving or no well that’s exactly right some things you need to stop I’m like hey check it out sometime in the future why not just tell me what’s the problem right exactly so okay so that’s AI right we yes positives negatives here there hopefully soon
There are some other themes right and I think you know of course in the last uh you know five years is mean coming out with your EVS was the big thing right but now like EVS are starting to become more established and it it’s it’s almost
Like especially at a show like this it’s not enough to just say hey we have an eeve it’s what else can I do with it now that we we know what an Eevee is skateboard platform all the new space what are we going to do so I think we
Saw some Concepts right Jake on on what we’re going to do with that space so so so I would say for the most part I mean look a lot of EVS that we see right now are kind of there’s a lot of technology in them but for the most part they’re
Trying to be like normal cars right I mean you look at you know Tesla Model 3 it’s kind of like it is an alternative to a bmw3 series a support sedan but I think we’re getting to the point we’re saying hey if you are this like I said skateboard platform which is basically
The battery is right underneath you don’t need a the tunnel of the drive shaft you don’t need the trans all those there’s a lot of opportunities so we were kind of saying like what does that mean now one thing I think EVS have done for us if they brought back like the
Wagon hatchback right they was like really uncool like everyone had a sedan suddenly like every EV it’s cool to have a hatch I like that I’m happy with that another car type that’s kind of like very uncool right now that bothers me is minivans yeah minivans for everyone who
Has them they love them they so space efficient experience it but I think they’re going to come back for EVS we saw I mean obviously Volkswagen’s been talking about the ID bus Buzz for like like a decade now but we’re seeing Concepts from Kia we’re seeing Concepts
From Honda showing look you got this flat floor you could it it goes back to like these little shuttles this calleda shuttles well why not just do that with a steering wheel have a really nice Lounge comfortable room for someone that’s able to be done by having an EV
The other thing we saw was um was Mo the uh mois I guess it was Honda and they were saying well you know again if you got Motors on all four wheels why not make the rear wheel steer too and they were doing some really neat tricks
Where you could have the car spin around or you depend go sideways the crab the crab in parking I mean again I just like the fact that we’re thinking about it saying you know what you could never do that with Drive Fest correct would not
Work yeah but why not yeah it’s kind of allowing this opportunity right now to reinvent the interior exper right You’ got the flat floor and then also just theity of the vehicle right so now you can have aicle that works for you in a way there are
More options you know and we even saw a concept that I think they called it the modular vehicle right where you can change up some of the Interior features that was K were like you pop off the pickup truck you make it a van or you
Car work for you right yeah I believe you said uh the ultimate utility vehicle right yeah exactly we should have come up with another AC acronym that’s what this is all about um one thing I really loved about the the Kia Concepts and what they showed is is you talked about
Making a room right for yourself and like yeah you know making all the space the dashboard completely flat on this B and kind of designed to be like a work surface and um the steering wheel flipped straight up and then turned into a desk lamp and like total concept type
Thing right but kind of and little silly but pretty pretty interesting right but kind of doable yeah yeah especially with um you know the electric platform and steer by wire absolutely all right and another thing that we saw a ton of is giant screens more screens I mean that’s nothing
Particularly new but it just keeps going and going I mean there were screens in your bumper for some reason right so what are we doing what can we do with that what should we not do is put them in your bum don’t put them that sounds
Like a very hanging fruit to just not do but right right yeah the the screens I mean we walked into this building and the entire foyer was a three floor tall screen right stimulating then you go into the showroom and they were you know full length and width of of the cars
They were screens everywhere yes so what are they using the screens for they’re putting everything in there because of course the the software defined vehicle software all of the future all word that was last sorry sorry I’m bringing it back um yeah so you know the ability to
Have overthe a updates if it’s software you can do that if it’s hard button you can’t so that’s really what’s driving the the push for the bigger and screens everywhere type of stuff um but we know with screens comes either you usability issues and also potential distraction
And what we did see here was a lot of uh you know companies trying to say how they’re going to monetize and add things into these screens whether they’re ads or things they can sell and things like that and that you know is is potentially concerning so hopefully we we see a
Little bit more you know usefulness stuff and not just ways it’s not so much a consumer need it’s more of a revenue need for some of they offering these and I think one of the things are really disappointing about it because you have all this real estate across the dash and
I know you know anyone who drives a car you’re like you know again I I want to see what you know what radio station I’m listening to and I want to see my speed and when I want to see my so it’s like you have more screen time makes sense
You can show those things but they’re not showing it for good it’s like and I think maybe the most disappointing thing is you think about nav and I know we talk a lot about like augmented reality augmented reality we’re just like okay just show me where the turn is don’t
Show me right turn and I see two right turns like show me on on the turn and what we keep on seeing is they basically have a video screen in the dashboard showing what outside looks like and then showing on that and that’s not helpful because you should be looking where
You’re going and not looking to see outside it’s not a video game so and also I got to I got to find that information when I do look down right amongst all the other things that EX at you exactly and and we saw actually on a
Couple of demos too the mirrors the side mirrors everyone talks about oh those should be turned into cameras and again more screens in the car are those actually helpful maybe maybe not potentially now a new cost uh there are definitely some downsides to that so yeah screens everywhere okay so kind of
The last major theme I would say that we saw um was actually hydrogen right we saw yeah Hyundai talking a lot about hydrogen they had this whole exclusive presentation that we had like waitting the giant line just to get in right so what’s that all about it’s it’s a real
Thing yeah it’s just not ready now so I mean I know we’ve been talking about like I mean we tested the the Toyota marai Hydro vehicle a couple years ago we looked at doing you know more hydrogen vehicles and just in Connecticut Neo chestra there’s not availability of hydrogen here’s the
Issue here’s the issue and I I got I got to say I was a little little little cringing a bit because when Hyundai was really talking about hydrogen you’re like instead of coal you’ll have hydrogen hydrogen is not really a fuel hydrogen is really an energy storage so
The way to think about about hydrogen fuel cell Vehicles is really just like a more advanced battery and you can charge really quick mhmh so it’s really just a way to store that energy but it’s like when you think about the problems associated with battery electric vehicles anyone who owns them it’s
Sitting there charging and yes they’re a lot faster but the truth is that if your storage energy is really hydrogen you can fill it up really quickly and have that long range and actually have a lifestyle that’s more like today where you go to a fueling station and you stop
In the convenience store you go to the bathroom whatever and you go on your way so we saw trucks like that certainly Hyundai is absolutely doubling down not just in terms of committing to make the vehicles but also to producing the Hy they sh about the entire ecosystem ESS
Exactly I mean they’ve got they’re they’re they’re working on ways to actually process waste and off gassing um fumes that could actually turn into hydrogen all these different things but it’s like I think the thing to pic about this is it’s not smok and Mars it’s real
But it’s not real now it has it has a different use right so like you said trucks you know those those long haul vehicles that need to go lots of miles that also need to refuel or recharge fast right there there’s a new solution or not new it’s been around for a while
A solution for those but I think that we’re still in this issue with infrastructure for personal vehicles so you mentioned we had you know some of the vehicles I remember we also had the Hyundai nexo several years back right in Connecticut you know there was one hydrogen fuel station and it took the
Entire range to get there in back um and so that’s going to be another issue just as it is with EVS um which are getting better same thing we need the infrastructure for them I think there’s a use case for the longer haul the bigger trucks things like that that
We’re not ready for for personally owned vehicles I know you know one of the benefits of of EV over hydrogen right now is that I can plug in at home I can’t do that with hydrogen right so I have to go still to almost you know a
Gas a hydrogen station and fuel up and find the time for that whereas at home I can just plug in and it’s ready to go so I mean think the right way to think about this is is not a race and there’s going to be a winner this is not beta
And VHS wow I’m dating myself but I mean it’s it’s it’s exactly it’s it’s going to be and yes so I mean you know you look at where we’ve been and like like a 100 years ago there was like EVs and they didn’t work out and then they went
Gas and then diesels and now diesels are gone it’s full circle yeah it’s going to be a an assortment of different Technologies in the Auto industry so I mean right now I mean obviously look at our desk cars right we got plug-in hybrids we got we got gas cars we got
Hybrids we got EVS there’s going to be there’s going to be certainly fuell in the future hybrids between the hydrogen and the batter you know there there’s different opportunities correct so it’s exciting and I think they’re going to be and actually the automakers are going to be poised to actually benefit are the
Companies like Hyundai who are really investing in all these Technologies as opposed to you look at you know a General Motors who’s like all right we’re all electric and we’re going to stop doing uh hybrids now you know they’re going to have to get back in that because I think all all these
Technologies are going to continue to I think keep all the cards on the table absolutely right right yeah and so before we wrap up here I I do want to hit on some of the kind of individual vehicles that we saw and actually a theme in a sense with some of the EVS
Right because we know that EVS are they’re really heavy right and that causes a lot of problems so I did hear some things particularly from Honda and Mercedes that as the the EV enthusiasts I suppose I’m excited about because they’re talking about making things thinner lighter more efficient Mercedes
Showed this um e uh it’s a CLA electric concept right so this is actually something that yeah it was a concept here today but it’ll be here sooner rather than later it’s not 2030 it’s more like 2025 right um but they’re talking a lot about making the vehicles more efficient getting that consumption
Down lowering the weight Honda showed these two pretty interesting uh EV Concepts that and again they’re they are Concepts kind uh yeah well one of them was a minivan the the other one kind of looks like a Lamborghini Kosh but yeah I was thinking Diablo yeah yeah EXA a
Little bit both but but they’re talking about lightweight being efficient right trying to get that stuff down so I don’t know that I don’t know what you thought about that but that excites me a little bit yeah I think it’s kind of the Next Generation in in the technology right we
We heard that they’re even moving changing the shape of the battery cells right from from cylindrical to more square and and rectangular right so they can fit them in tighter bring the weight down all of that so I think you know we’re kind of in this exciting moment of
Uh you know revolutionizing kind of the battery and it’s going to bring the size down and make them more think about gasoline engines over the last 20 years right I mean it was common place just 15 years ago for a midsize sedan get 21 m
Per gallon now 32 m per gallon so I mean they are definitely making things more efficient in terms of the usage of the battery and the battery themselves charging faster making it smaller I mean there’s also you know let’s not forget about solid state batteries a lot of
People are talking about those that’s that’s you know has a lot of PRS to make it lighter more efficient all those different things so they’ll continue to to improve as well other things I mean look at again going back to the fuel cell vehicles um that you’re using
Hydrogen I mean they’ve gotten 95% of the cost out of it in just about 10 15 years so it’s going to continue to evolve all of these Technologies much faster than these old and gas yeah yes yes yes all right so that’s going to do it for this episode of talking cars
Thank you so much for watching and as always if you have any questions submit them to talking cars at icloud.com and we will see you next Time
We’re at CES in Las Vegas, where much of the hype has been around introducing artificial intelligence into your car’s infotainment system. But is AI in your vehicle actually going to be useful, or is it just hype? The EV market is maturing, and we got to see where automakers are going to take the unique abilities that electric vehicles are afforded with fewer moving parts and more space-efficient layouts, including a rebrand of the minivan form factor. We also discuss why hydrogen might be a viable alternative to battery-electric vehicles in the future, and try to figure out why anyone would want a large LED screen built into their bumper.
SHOW NOTES
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00:00 – Introduction
00:17 – Why is CR at CES 2024?
01:30 – Who was not at CES 2024?
03:46 – AI in your next car
11:10 – Automakers Reimagining EVs
14:30 – Large LED Screens inside and outside of vehicles
17:11 – Hydrogen Vehicles
21:03 – New EV concepts
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First Drive: Toyota Mirai, the Hydrogen-Powered Luxury Cruiser
https://www.consumerreports.org/cars/hybrids-evs/2021-toyota-mirai-fuel-cell-vehicle-review-a6180665724/?EXTKEY=YSOCIAL_YT
Hybrid & EV Ratings
https://www.consumerreports.org/cars/hybrids-evs/?EXTKEY=YSOCIAL_YT
Futuristic EQS Proves Mercedes-Benz’s Commitment to EVs
https://www.consumerreports.org/cars/hybrids-evs/2022-mercedes-benz-eqs-review-a2271854355/?EXTKEY=YSOCIAL_YT
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See our car ratings and reviews at: https://www.consumerreports.org/cars/?EXTKEY=YSOCIAL_YT
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