Emerging Technologies and Automobiles

Technologies in Development

          After reading the article about the six new car technologies that will revolutionize driving within the next ten years, I think that the one of these ideas that is least likely to happen so soon is Terrafugia's TF-X. The idea of a flying car is great and it might happen in the next 100 or 200 years, but I don’t think there is any way that we will ever live to see it happen. However, technology is always evolving and developing so who knows! It makes more sense that the technology needed to create a machine as durable as a car that is able to lift off of the ground quickly and be able to be flown safely by anyone will take decades to create and it might never happen. Out of the six future car technologies, I think the one that will have the biggest impact on society would be the is the Tesla Supercharger Stations. These stations seem like a wonderful idea to me and the fact that they already exist in nine states is amazing! There is a chance that it could be a little bit less efficient than just plain gas, but it is definitely more eco-friendly which is a very important factor to me when regarding the future of automobiles. Also, I believe that if any of these new advancements were to become a reality, it would most likely be the Next-Gen Active Safety (besides the Tesla Supercharger Stations that already exist). I think that out of the six, this safety feature is most likely going to be invented first because most car companies are always trying to create new safety features, and this one is not extremely large or elaborate so it would be very smart but quick development! I think that Ford’s “Driver Workload Estimator” could help drivers and their passengers safer because with the sensor system, it could read the driver and passenger's heart rate and could make the car do different things in the situation of a possible crash. Also, since the system has a sensor that reads the person’s BPM and other points on the body that show stress or possible danger, it could help with drunk driving or driving while on drugs. The possible creation of a car that is able to drive and fly does not seem like a good idea to me at all. The technology will most likely fail and I personally just don’t trust that it would be safe. If the world was given the ability to fly their cars around so many people would die because a lot of people don’t even know how to drive their cars regularly. The only benefit of a flying car is that it could be more efficient and that there would be a major lack of traffic, but the disadvantages outweigh the benefit. The main disadvantages of a flying car are that it would be very dangerous to fly alongside other flying cars without any laws in place, and that almost every single law regarding the road would have to be changed. There would just be a lot of confusion and extra work so there really isn’t any need to make it happen. I don’t think that the invention of a self-driving car is a bad idea, but I personally would never use it. I like the idea of driving and the entire experience is really fun to me. Also, I would not trust the car to actually be completely okay just working by itself! To drive a car regularly, you need to remember a lot about signaling and the specific area you are driving in and I don’t think that a car would be able to do everything for you and have it be 100% safe.

Tech for the Sake of Tech?

          For this assignment, I read an article about how a lot of people really don’t like new car technologies. I didn’t find it very surprising at all that a lot of young people don’t like the very elaborate new technological advancements because the normal car technology that everyone is used to is enjoyable! It’s not weird that young people don’t care about having smartphone connectivity in their cars because the idea of using a phone for anything while in a car is unsafe so connecting your car to your phone doesn’t sound safe and that could also be a reason why young people are not gravitating towards this development. I don’t think that my generation would feel the same about this option because we are so connected to our phones that many people would not want to stop using them even while driving. However, even though I don’t think my generation would feel the same as the young people in the survey, I would prefer to not have my car connected to my phone while I drive. It doesn’t seem safe to me and even looking away from the road while driving is stressful to me. I don’t think that because drivers are not using the connectivity options suggests that drivers are still using their smartphones while they drive because I would not like using the connectivity options but I also won't use my phone while I drive. I don’t think that when drivers use cruise control and blind spot warnings it makes it easier to take more risks because a lot of people just use them to be safer. If people are worried about speeding they usually use cruise control not because they want to use their phones. I think that these two things do a better job of promoting safe driving than making it easier for people to take more risks. When purchasing a new car, new technological advancements are not that important to me. The only things that are important to me are air conditioning, heat and a place to plug in a phone for music. I don’t like the idea of having to deal with figuring out the new technological advancements and I prefer older cars so they don’t matter at all to me. The only new technological feature that I would like to have would be Sirius XM radio but that isn’t even that new and I don’t need it if I have a place to plug in a phone for music. I just want a very simple car mainly because I’ll be buying my own in two years! The radio is important to me because the car that my family has now has it and I know how to use it and it is very convenient! I think that one new car technology that was introduced in older automobiles that people may not have liked in the beginning would be turn signals. A lot of people today seem to not like turn signals very much so it would make sense if when they were first introduced people would not have liked them. Also, when the first few styles of cars were being invented everybody liked the look of them and that was very important to a lot of people so people probably thought that if they added these turn signals their cars wouldn't look as nice!

The History of The Automobile

Carl Benz

1. For how many years has the automobile been around?
The automobile has been around for one hundred and twenty years.

2.What is a patent? The answer is not in the video, so search for an answer online.
A patent is “a government authority or license conferring a right or title for a set period, especially the sole right to exclude others from making, using, or selling an invention”.

3. When Carl Benz obtains a patent in January of 1886 for his invention, what title did he use to describe the automobile?
In January 1886, Carl Benz used the title “vehicle with gas engine” to describe the automobile.

4. Who in his family drives his invention in August of 1888? What is "born" from this drive?
In August of 1888, his wife Berta steps in and she drives the automobile with her two eldest sons, and this drive allows the first Petro Station to be born.

 
5. What did the so called "axial pivot steering system" help solve?
Carl Benz solved the problem of steering the front two wheels simultaneously with the “axial pivot steering system”. This principle is still used today.

6. What is the new name when the two automobile companies are merged?
When to two most important German automobile companies, Benz and Co. and The Diamond Motor Company, are merged, they created the new name Mercedes Benz.

7. What did Benz experience as a pioneer in technology that many pioneers never experience?
Unlike many other pioneers in technology, Carl Benz lived to see his dream come true - the breakthrough of the automobile.



Henry Ford and the Model T

1. Explain how the assembly line changed from suggestions made to Henry Ford by three of his employees.
The original structure of the assembly line was changed from suggestions made to Henry Ford by three of his employees because they came up with an idea that instead of having the workers move down the line to their station of work and what they were good at, the line would move and the workers would stay in one place. This system allowed for the assembly line to move and whatever specific operation the employee was good at would continue to appear on the line before them rather than having to move and transport the items to the different areas of the other employees.

2. Why did workers tend to stay longer and be more committed to Ford's company than other companies at that time?
The workers of Henry Ford tended to stay longer and be more committed to his company than other companies at that time because Henry believed in treating all of his employees equally in terms of wages and they all got paid very livable wages for their work. They became more committed to the work considering how much they were making and his strong workers would usually stay for long periods of time.

3. How much did the first Model T cost? For what class of people was it manufactured?
The first Model T costed a little over $1000.00. Henry Ford created the Model T for the common man because other means of transportation like carriages were manufactured for the rich and were far more expensive.

4. The Model T price dropped dramatically. To what price did it drop? Why do you think it dropped so much?
The price of the Model T quickly dropped to only $800.00, but after he had built nearly 100,000 Model T’s, they only costed about $365.00. I think that the price dropped so much because so many of them were being manufactured and, being the first car, everyone was going to buy them anyways so even though he could have kept the price up at $1000.00, they probably wouldn’t have had as many sales.

5. As the Model T became the main mode of transportation, what did this automobile offer people?
When the Model T became the main mode of transportation, it offered people with the ability to travel wherever and whenever they wanted without having to rely on railroads. The car gave everyone a ticket to freedom because they could travel for pleasure and didn’t have to spend money on trains or carriages.



My Video Selections

The Assembly Line: Then and Now

• In the year 1910, Henry Ford introduced the first power driven assembly line for manufacturing cars.
• Before the introduction of the power driven assembly line, it took sixteen hours and a lot of workers running around with car parts to build an original Model T Ford, but the assembly line workers could make the exact same car in less than half that time.
• The power driven assembly line became the new method of manufacturing for all kinds of industries.
• The biggest issue with the power driven assembly line was that the work was extremely repetitive. The newer version of the assembly line allows robots and machines to do the most repetitive work like putting in screws, and the employees work alongside them.

The Ford Edsel

• The Ford Edsel was named after Henry Ford’s only son, Edsel Ford.
• The name Edsel is now strongly associated with failure because when the Ford Edsel was created, the public thought it was very ugly nobody really liked it at all. The name is also very ironic because the man it was named after was known for his impeccable taste and he was the same man who was the inspiration for what was considered one of the most beautiful cars of all time, the original Lincoln Continental.
• The Ford Edsel was the industry’s biggest flop because the cost for marketing and building the Edsel was somewhere between $250,000,000 and $350,000,000 and only three years after its debut, Ford pulled the Edsel from its lineup, making it nothing more than a waste.

Automobile Timeline

Four points that I found interesting about this timeline and why are:

1911: Electric starter introduced - Charles Kettering introduced the electric car starter 105 years ago and before this time, engines had to be started by hand cranking. I found this interesting because it was a very important development for every single vehicle that would be invented in the future. Starting an automobile by cranking obviously was not convenient and so this invention of an electric starter that was small enough to fit under the hood of a car but powerful enough to start the engine would have been revolutionary in the history of the automobile.

1913: First moving assembly line for automobiles developed - Ford Motor Company develops the first moving assembly line for automobiles. I found this point very interesting because without this development, the structure of the modern day assembly line would probably be different. With Ford’s development of the assembly line process, workers were able to perform a single task rather than needing to master the entire assembly of an automobile. This process also allowed Ford to drop the price of the original Model T over the next 14 years, transforming cars from unaffordable luxuries made directed at the rich into a form of transportation available for everyone.

1935: Flashing turn signals introduced - A company in Delaware invented the first flashing turn signal lights for automobiles. I think that this was a very important development because if we didn’t have them today alongside the amount of cars that are on roads everyday, there would be car accidents happening everywhere all the time. They were originally created with thermal interrupter switches but transistor circuits took over for them in the 1960s, so they have been developed into the newest form of technology that we use today over a long period of time. It’s quite interesting to think that turn signals were introduced 81 years ago and a lot of people still don’t know how to use them.

1950s: Cruise control is developed - Ralph Teeter, a blind man, sensed by ear that on the Pennsylvania Turnpike, cars travel at different speeds which he believes will lead to more accidents. I found this point very interesting because for one, the man was blind and he could tell by ear that the cars were going different speeds which alone is very impressive, but also because after Googling the Pennsylvania Turnpike, the first thing that shows up is a news article from one day ago (04/20/16) about a four-vehicle crash. So, Ralph wasn’t wrong about the accidents on the road! This development was also very important because although it was unpopular when it was introduced in the 1950s, cruise control is now standard on more than seventy percent of today’s automobiles.

Video Assignment: Digital Law and Cyberbullying in the Lives of Teens

Rationale: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1vA-ZTUnWuj81LTCFO8vD9jjcetiheRvbqRI0bEa8Jlk/edit