Typically, a show car will make its North American debut at major auto shows like those at Los Angeles or Chicago. The Ford Evos Concept car, however, will make its first appearance in North America as the centerpiece of Ford’s display at the 2012 International Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in Las Vegas in January. So why is the car, which had its global debut at the Frankfurt Motor Show in September, making an appearance in an electronics show? It’s on display at CES because it represents a leap forward in computing power designed to enhance the driving and owning experiences. It provides a glimpse of Ford’s technology future, highlighted by the use of cloud computing.
“Today, drivers have to adapt to the features and capabilities of their car,” says Paul Mascarenas, chief technical officer of Ford’s global Research and Innovation team. “The Evos Concept changes the paradigm of how you interact with your car. Our vision is that the car should seamlessly adapt to the driver taking the driving experience to a whole new level of personalization and convenience.”
By exchanging data with the cloud, the Evos extends the connected lifestyle from home and office to the vehicle, providing new possibilities for the personalization of the car. It offers the integration of onboard data about driver preferences with cloud-based information -- such as work schedules, music and weather conditions -- and local data delivered through vehicle-to-vehicle communications.
“The car gets to know you and can act as a personal assistant to handle some of the usual routines of a daily commute,” says Mascarenas.
The car is so smart that it can tell you how you are feeling. Ford researchers incorporated features such as the heart rate monitoring seat and the certified allergy-free interiors and connected them to the cloud. This way, the physical state and workload of the driver can be monitored, and the driving experience can be adjusted accordingly (e.g., if you’re breathing hard, it will reduce your steering effort). The car also uses the power of the cloud to understand driver behavior and travel patterns in order to make predictions about destination arrivals. By understanding where the driver is likely to go, Evos can intelligently switch between running on battery power or engine power in order to use the least amount of energy for any situation.
