CES 2012: Car Tech- Page 2

Qualcomm Halo charges your car without cables, or even stopping

Qualcomm is working on the second generation of the Halo inductive charging system for electric cars that it acquired last year from HaloIPT.

Like inductive charging systems being worked on at Mercedes-Benz and Nissan, the Halo uses an inductive emitter installed in, or on, the street, and a receiver on the bottom of the car. The new second version uses a smaller car-mounted charging plate, only 14 by 8.5 inches (and one inch thick).

Unlike the inductive "paddle" chargers in the GM EV-1, the Halo system works over a fairly large air gap, up to two feet. … Read more

Ford talks up connected cars at CES

LAS VEGAS--Today's automakers are embracing the Internet cloud by building connected cars, and Ford is no exeception.

To find out more about Ford's strategy, I sat down with the company CEO Alan Mulally and Chief Technology Officer Paul Mascarenas at Ford's massive booth at the Consumer Electronics Show here, ahead of Mulally's keynote address. (Scroll down to listen to the podcast.)

When I asked Mulally why a car company would be at CES, he said, "We're clearly a technology company and we're providing very important technical solutions through the mobile application devices we … Read more

TomTom App v1.10 navigates to Facebook events, tweets your ETA

LAS VEGAS--TomTom's iOS app for iPhone and iPad devices is about to get a helping of the same social-networking love that surprised us in the Go Live 1535M navigation device...and then some.

The new update to the TomTom App, version 1.10, gains integration with Facebook and Twitter, allowing users to share destinations and arrival times via the social networks, SMS text messages, and e-mail. Users can also access their Facebook places, events, and friends as potential destinations for turn-by-turn navigation--even the 1535M PND can't pull off that last trick.

Like previous versions of the TomTom App, … Read more

Viva la revolucion! Mercedes channels Che Guevara for car tech

They said it, not me.

"Some colleagues still think that car-sharing borders on communism," Mercedes-Benz Chairman of the Board of Management Dieter Zetsche said onstage at CES today, speaking about Mercedes' new CarTogether initiative. "But if that's the case, viva la revolucion!"

To be sure, a luxury-car maker like Mercedes is not actually promoting communism. But during his CES talk, Zetsche pushed hard on a vision that the company has for a greener future that allows drivers to reduce emissions by using connected and social technology to easily find compatible passengers to share rides with. … Read more

Mercedes wants you to share cars like a Communist

"Viva la revolucion!"

Mercedes-Benz may not seem like the kind of company that would promote the social use of its vehicles, but at CES today, it was doing just that.

During the company's CES press conference, Daimler's chairman of the board of management, Dieter Zetsche, laid out a vision for car sharing that may be intimately tied to Mercedes cars in the future.

That's because future Mercedes cars will have a telematics app called CarTogether that can help drivers find people with whom to share rides. This is not quite the same thing, of course, … Read more

Daimler taking 'auto-mobility' to next level (live blog)

LAS VEGAS--Dieter Zetsche, Daimler chairman and head of Mercedes-Benz Cars, took the stage here at CES this morning to talk about the interplay between automotive innovation and the digital realm.

He focused on the next generation of smart, connected cars, including those coming from Mercedes.

"Some might consider the car a mere accessory of consumer electronics. Some consider consumer electronics a mere accessory to the car," Zetsche said. "Both perspectives miss the mark. A smart vehicle can be so much more than a mode of transportation. A car is a personal declaration of independence."

He also … Read more