New Car Tech i'm most excited about

Technology What makes a car Good
1

the two new technologies that i have spent decades waiting for that are finally here are

1 - Active Ride in Porsche Taycan, Panamera and possibly upcoming 911 Turbo Hybrid

2 - Steer By Wire in Tesla CyberTruck

both technologies basically replace physics with software - one does it for suspension - the other for steering

neither tech is new - Bose demonstrated prototype electromagnetic suspension WAY back using the original Lexus LS400 and basically all Jumbo Jets use fly by wire

but these technologies were never used in production cars before as far as i know

the electromagnetic suspension basically replaces shocks and anti roll bars with electromagnets

and steer by wire basically replaces the physical link between steering wheel and the front tires with a bunch of electric motors

the benefit in both cases is that software is far more flexible than hardware. you can only do so much by tuning a physical system. you can do anything in software.

this is similar to how physical crossovers in speakers were replaced with DSP ( digital sound processing ) and it was a quantum leap in sound quality because DSP can easily realize any function whereas physical crossovers struggle to implement even simple mathematical functions.

of course i wouldn’t get the CyberTruck as the implementation of steer by wire there seems horrendous with the wheels VISIBLY LAGGING the steering wheel in the videos i have seen. but if Tesla can keep this tech on the road without having it recalled for safety reasons eventually better automakers like Porsche might follow.

i doubt we will see Steer By Wire on a 911 EVER because that car is all about being mechanical, but we could see it on Porsche EVs maybe in 5 - 10 years time.

as for Active Ride i doubt we will see them on Teslas anytime soon because it is a genuinely expensive tech to implement and Elon Musk is not the kind of guy to throw money away.

2

i have already written a lot about Porsche Active Ride so here i will just explain the benefit of Steer By Wire

the MAIN benefit is variable ratio. you want the ratio high at parking speeds so you don’t need to make multiple turns of the wheel to park, but you want the ratio low at highway speeds so that a small muscle twitch won’t send you into a ditch.

with current mechanical tech we can only make the ratio slightly variable but it isn’t a noticeable difference. the main thing we can do with current tech is just make the steering feel heavier at high speeds and lighter at low speeds which has similar benefit but less pronounced.

the other thing is that potentially we could tune the numbness out and make the steering feel more direct because you would no longer be feeling the road through a bunch of mechanical linkages. of course this will depend entirely on implementation as clearly CyberTruck system seems to accomplish the opposite to where the wheels and steering wheel aren’t even turning at the same time.

but i’m still grateful to Elon Musk for actually taking that leap so that we can use people who buy Teslas as guinea pigs to develop tech that will eventually make it into cars from companies that actually care about the lives of their customers.

also as most premium cars today have 4 wheel steering you would even be able to feel the rear wheels through the steering wheel.

and finally you will no longer need a round steering wheel because you will no longer need to make multiple turns of the wheel at low speeds. this could have multiple benefits depending on how ambitious carmakers get with reimagining the cockpit.