Digitronics makeover for family cars

Manglapus’ two sons — 10-year-old Q and Bori, 15 — were in the second row of the 2003 Honda Odyssey minivan watching a movie on a small, ceiling-mounted video screen. When the movie ended, the boys slept. When they awakened, they pulled out tiny consoles and played electronic games.

Sociologists might cite the Manglapus vacation as evidence of growing dysfunction in American family life. But consumer electronics manufacturers and retailers, and a growing number of automobile companies, see it as a gold mine.

The numbers are scattered, but they are nonetheless impressive. Sales are booming, for example, in the satellite radio industry, dominated by Washington-based XM Satellite Radio Holdings Inc. and Sirius Satellite Radio Inc. in New York. They are subscription radio services, in much the manner of satellite and cable television. Satellite radio sales totaled $300 million last year, a 140 percent increase over 2003, according to figures provided by the Consumer Electronics Association.

Miniaturisation enhances portability. It means a television screen can be carried in a pocket or installed in a car. It means a version of the kitchen refrigerator or juicer can be carried in the cargo area of a sport-utility vehicle, or in an automobile’s trunk.

Automobile manufacturers are scrambling to redesign their vehicles to accommodate all of the portable electronics consumers may want to take on their road trips. The problem is how to anticipate what those items might be. But the reality is that “there is no way we can do that,” said Ron Miller of Ford Motor Co’s intelligent vehicle technologies group.

“Something introduced today can be obsolete within three months. The best we can do is to find a way to make our vehicles more accessible to whatever is coming,” Miller said.

To that end, Ford has been working on “power line communications”. Success in that endeavor would allow passengers to use the power lines in their cars and trucks to, for example, surf the Internet. Major car companies have redesigned some of their cars and trucks to more easily accept data storage devices, such as iPods and MP3 equipment.

All this activity means more pressure on the consumer electronics industry to wed vehicle safety with commerce. Video screens are not likely to decrease driving risks, safety experts say. CEA executives agree.

Under the association’s proposed global standard, the only screens allowed in the front cabins of vehicles would be informational, such as navigational screens, or entertainment screens that function only when the vehicle is in “park” or when the vehicle’s parking brake is applied.

LAT-WP