Powering the digital car

In the future, consumers may be basing their vehicle preferences on the performance of automotive electronics systems, say experts that attended SAE's Digital Car Conference.

Consumer purchase decisions in the automotive and consumer electronics industries rely on carefully thought-out product evaluations. If on-demand acceleration is a prime consideration, then engine power factors into the vehicle selection process. If power is of optimum importance, then processor speed enters into the computer buying equation.

“Today, many people buy cars based on horsepower, though in the future we think people will buy cars based on processing power,” Michael lannitti, Director of Extended Computing Operations for Intel Corp.'s Wireless Communications & Computing Group, said during the Digital Car Conference & Exhibition, which was collocated with the SAE 2002 World Congress in March.