New Cars, New Gadgets Presented at the 2007 NAIAS

The 2007 North American International Auto Show has become an event of glamour, fashion and technology. With all the celebrities and who’s who that attended the event you would have mistaken it for the Grammy’s. But of course the NAIAS is not about the beautiful celebrities but about the cars that will make their world debuts. The North American International Auto Show also reflects the technological breakthroughs that the car industry has achieved.

Various car gadgets and gizmos that increase safety and driving comfort were featured. Take for instance dashboard screens that can do it all, like control your radio, control your climate, control your navigational system, control your DVD playback, etc. —example of this is BMW X5’s iDrive System.

A good navigational system is a plus in any car and for this year the system was made even better---its voice activated and Acura just happen to be offering it. According to Jessica Fini, Spokeswoman of Acura, “As long as you don’t have all the windows down and the radio cranked up, it’s pretty good at hearing you.”

Not to be left out, Nick Cappa, DaimlerChrysler’s Manager for Advanced Technology has also expressed that their company will also be offering the same navigational technology. He said, “We’d love to do this in the next few years. There are Vehicle Infrastructure Integrationcq-recinto tests going on now.”

Entertainment particularly music has for years become a vital part of a pleasurable driving experience and for this year the automakers at the North American International Auto Show has taken the car music system to another level when they presented in-dash, hard drive based music systems that will only involve a USB drive or a rip CD. The benefit of this is that you no longer have to be carrying your CD collections which often end up making a mess in the car. The QX56 sports-utility vehicle and the G35 sedan are offering a music system that can store up to 3,000 songs.

Safety features have also been upgraded and this time it works with the driver rather than taking over. Although there have been previously presented braking systems that make use of sensors that put vehicles to a halt once it sense that an accident is about to happen. And for this year automaker’s has added more features on the braking system that can sense lights, sound, even physical nudges to let the driver know that something is obstructing the road up ahead. Some of the cars that preview such braking system includes: Infiniti which pre-pressurizes the brake system when it senses a vehicle that suddenly stops ahead, Acura’s Collision Mitigation Braking System which flashes a Brake light, dings at the driver, tugs at the seatbelt and then finally tightens up the seat belt and then brakes when a crash is about to happen.

Joe Thompson is the owner of a successful auto body shop in Ferndale, California. This 38 year old is also a prolific writer, contributing automotive related articles to various publications.