Filed under: Emerging Technologies, Legislation and Policy, USA



Your car is about to get a lot more chatty. The Department of Transportation and the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration announced today that Vehicle-To-Vehicle (V2V) technologies will be coming to all new cars. At some point in the future. Most likely.

The basic idea behind the technology is that the vehicles share data - things like speed and position - with other vehicles around them, up to hundreds of yards away, ten times a second. The technology does not share personal movement but will allow your car to "see" vehicles that are around a corner and alert you to their presence. Today's announcement, available below, is really just a signal to automotive stakeholders that the federal government is interested in V2V and will now start working on what the rules for introducing this technology will be. Despite the image the DOT provided, there was no announcement about V2V for larger vehicles, as today's announcement was only applicable to light vehicles.

Speaking on a conference call with reporters today, US Transportation Secretary Anthony Foxx, NHTSA Acting Administrator David Friedman and US DOT Assistant Secretary for Research and Technology Greg Winfree emphasized the safety angle of V2V technology, but also mentioned that V2V can help drivers save fuel. "Early indications show V2V has the potential to help drivers avoid 70 to 80 percent of vehicle crashes involving unimpaired drivers," Foxx said. Friedman added, "I believe that this V2V technology will represent an advance in roadway transportation matched only by the development of the interstate highway system itself."

A more cautionary perspective was offered by the Association of Global Automakers. CEO Michael Stanton said that while the technology has potential, the 5.9-GHz frequency band that V2V could use is already in use by some Wi-Fi devices. "We're concerned that opening up the 5.9 GHz frequency band to other wireless users could cause harmful interference and affect the integrity of the V2V safety communications. Communication delays of even thousandths of a single second matter when dealing with auto and highway safety. That's why we are working with the Wi-Fi industry to find out if this spectrum can safely be shared," he told WIRED.

DOT has been testing V2V technologies for years but did not announce any concrete timing for the introduction of V2V in cars, just calling the time frame "fluid." One thing we're pretty sure of is that this announcement can only hasten the arrival of autonomous cars, despite the fact that the technology today doesn't include any V2V bits that interact with a vehicle's control mechanisms. That could come in the future. You can read more on DOT's view on V2V here and here.Continue reading DOT and NHTSA push for vehicle-to-vehicle communication

DOT and NHTSA push for vehicle-to-vehicle communication originally appeared on AutoblogGreen on Mon, 03 Feb 2014 19:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.



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