Autopilot modern cars

It does not have to guess your weight. It already knows.

It watches how you drive and it can pull a trump. Skid, and before you can blink, you’re fired – the car is driving for you, if only for a moment. Cars today can decide when to brake and steer and can park themselves. They can even see.

In short, the back-seat driver now lives under the hood. And it does more than just talk.

This is all technology on the road now, if not in a single country or car. But industry engineers and executives view it as the start of a trend in which automobiles become increasingly in touch with their surroundings and able to act autonomously.

Diminishing returns from air bags and other devices that help people survive crashed have led to a wave of new technology to help avoid accidents. Or, an on board microprocessor judges a collision to be inevitable, the car puts itself into a defensive crouch. Mercedes s-class sedans will even start shutting the sunroof and lifting reclined seats if a collision is deemed likely.

This trend is made possible by the car’s evolution from a mechanical device to an increasingly computerized one, in which electronic impulses replace or augment moving parts. That means microprocessor can control the most basic driving functions, like steering and braking.

At the same time, there is a parerelle evolution in sensory technology. Most advanced safety systems are equipped with sensors that look inside the car, tracking tire rotation, brake pressure and how rapidly a driver is turning the steering wheel.

But next generation sensors, including radar and hidden cameras, are looking outside the car, giving it the ability to open its eyes, so to speak, to its surroundings.