The Car of the Future: What Can We Expect to See in the Years to Come?

For the purposes of this article, we’re going to look no further into the future than a decade. It would be silly to go too far ahead, because that approaches the realms of science fiction, with teleportation, flying cars (we have these already, we call them planess), and light cycles. Instead, we’re going to look at the technologies that are coming to market within the next few years.

Apple CarPlay and Android Auto

Spell check just flagged CarPlay as an error, but give it a few years, and it will be part of the dictionary that comes with most word processing software.

Both of these are the latest evolution for in-car entertainment from the two internet powerhouses: Apple and Google (Google bought the rights to Android back in 2005).

Bizarrely, in-car internet use has yet to take off properly, but within the next 5 years, it is going to explode into the market and become big business.

CarPlay and Auto will be the two operating systems going head to head for a slice of the market. Currently, they both offer similar functionality, but as soon as one gets ahead, it’s likely to dominate the market. Personally, because it’s less proprietary, the winner might be Android, but there’s still a lot of argument about this.

In terms of in-car entertainment, what can you expect from CarPlay and Auto?

• Maps – both have their own satnav technology. OK, it’s not entertainment, but it’s still cool
• Radio – digital, of course
• Media – audio and visual files. You can even feed to the back of the car and your fellow passengers. In fact, they can now control the main system from a tablet-style unit built into the back of the car. You can deactivate this feature, of course. Otherwise, you'll have the kids playing their rubbish music at 90+ decibels, which isn’t great for your concentration! Hopefully they’ll one day allow you to set parameters, so you can say up to which volume setting those in the back can listen, and to which files/radio stations they have access.
• Phone – speak to your friends and family whenever you want. We’d add work too, but that’s not entertaining!

They have plenty of other features too, such as traffic updates, voice activation, and menus, but that’s it for entertainment for now.

Newer cars will come with either option preinstalled. If you want one now, you have to get it installed. Most of you will have to use in car entertainment London, as it’s a relatively new technology, and few other places have audio shops that have the expertise needed to install the new units.

Lounge-Style Cars

Self-driving cars are nearly ready. They reckon that they’ll be a common feature on the roads from 2025. This is going to revolutionise driving, and especially the configuration of how we sit in the car. At present, we all sit facing forward, but in the future; experts hypothesise that we’ll be able to choose different configurations, and that a key favourite will be the front and back seats facing each other. In this way, it will be just like sitting in a lounge or in a bar. There might even be a table between us, for dinner and drinks. It might become a thing to go out for a dinner drive. We hope so!

If you would like to know more visit Incarmusic.