Recently I drove 5,000 kilometres across North America in a 20-year-old car with just 30,000 total kilometres on it—essentially a new old car. It was a real “time machine” experience that afforded me the opportunity to compare yesterday’s new-car experience to today’s, especially in terms of lighting and driver assistance.
Of course we all know there’s no versus; most DVN readers have been diligently working to improve the state of the arts all along. But it’s one thing to know intellectually that the normal and customary standard of lighting and electronic brains in a car is higher now than it was before, and quite another thing altogether to experience it for a week, day and night, rain and shine. It was a graphic, experiential reminder that the work we do really matters, makes a positive difference in the everyday (everynight!) lives of people who regard their cars in the same category as their refrigerator or their toaster, as an appliance to be used until it’s used up and then replaced.
Most people never think about their car’s lights, especially in North America. They should, of course, but they don’t. Fortunately for them and all of us, those whose daily work involves improving car lights and developing ever-smarter driving assistants—the DVN community—are doing a great deal of smart thinking and hard work to make things better. Read more about my trip and observations in this week’s in-depth report.
Sincerely yours
Daniel Stern
DVN Global Editor