It’s actually amazing how much cars have advanced in terms of features in the past 5–10 years. The impact of safety regulations and cheaper microchips, cameras, and sensors has led to an explosion in computer-powered features in cars that were once reserved mainly for the luxury market. I’m a gadget nerd, and I’m always obsessed by the different features cars have, so I’ve been all over these and love using them in my car. But I think this explosion has happened so quickly that most people don’t even realize they have half of these features. So consider this post a public service announcement for some new features your car probably has, but you probably don’t use.
CarPlay / Android Auto
CarPlay (for iPhones) and Android Auto (for Android phones) is a way of showing a version of your phone on your car’s display in a way that makes it easier (and safer) to use than your phone. It means you can use a nice, big map, control your music, and even hear text messages and reply by voice when you drive. If you bought a car in the past 5 years, it’s very likely your car this technology. But since I still see so many cars on the road that I know are capable of having this technology but where people have either mounted their phone or (GIANT FACEPALM) using their phone in their hand while they drive, I think a lot of people just don’t know about this.
Not only does CarPlay/Android Auto make it more convenient to use than your phone, it’s also WAY SAFER to use. This is because they’ve optimized the user interface to have big, readable buttons so you can quickly glance at what you need to and then back on the road. And they won’t ever present you with a keyboard to type things due to the distraction it represents.
I have to point out here that even if your car doesn’t have this technology, you should not be using your phone while driving. I know smartphones are a little addictive and difficult to ignore, but you have to remember that when you’re driving a car, you’re operating a machine that can kill or seriously injure people. The risk vs. reward of using your phone while you drive is so out of whack that I honestly think anyone who uses their phone while they drive should be ashamed of themselves. If you can’t control your impulse to check it while you drive, put it in your trunk or glove compartment.
Automatic Climate Control
This feature is still a little less popular, and not usually available in the base model of cars, but I highly recommend going to the model that has it. Automatic climate control basically works like the thermostat in your house works: you just pick a temperature and the system tries to get your environment to that temperature. In a car, this is even better than in a house because you don’t even need to pick between heating and cooling modes. I just set my car’s desired temperature to 21 Celsius, and if it needs to kick in the AC to cool the car to get it there, it does so. If it needs to kick the heat in to get it there, it’ll do so. It will even kick the fan into high mode automatically if your desired temperature is way off from the current temperature to get you there faster.
Before automatic climate control, you were forced to almost constantly futz with your climate control yourself. You know the drill. In the winter, you’d crank your heat and fans up, then realize it was too hot, then you’d crank it down. Then it would get too cold, and you’d start the whole process over again. The thing is, this is what automatic climate control does for you. It just heats until it gets to the desired temperature, then shuts off. Off-boarding this task to your car’s computer just makes so much sense and lets you focus more on actually driving.
While I’m on this, I just have to mention one thing about the desired temperature, which is true of houses and cars. Setting your thermostat to a super high temperature will not heat your house or car faster. Whatever temperate you set, your system just heats until it gets there and stops. Setting a high temperature is not at all the same thing as slamming on your car’s gas pedal. (All of this is of course true in the inverse for cooling.)
Automatic Cruise Control
Cruise control used to work by setting a desired speed, and having your car handle the acceleration to maintain that speed. Which is a great thing for when you are on a long stretch of highway with no one in front of you. But that scenario (the no one in front of you part) is so rare these days. Basically, every highway that I drive on with any regularity will have someone in front of me. So in this context, cruise control basically becomes useless. If someone ahead of you is going slightly slower than you, you have to turn it off and probably tap the brakes to avoid slamming into them.
Automatic cruise control uses the power of cheap sensors and computers to sense the car in front of you, and reduce your speed to match theirs automatically. So if you set your desired speed to 110 km/hr, your car will go that speed until it gets behind someone going 108 km/hr, and then will just match that speed automatically. So you can just put on automatic cruise control, and your car will automatically keep up with traffic. I find having this on makes me so much less tired after a long drive.
I should say that, again, a car is a dangerous machine, and you absolutely should not use automatic cruise control as a way to less attention to the road. If anything, I find the power of advanced cruise control, automatic climate control and other things actually frees up my attention to pay more attention to the road, and I think I’m a better and safer driver because of it.
So there you go — three things about your car you probably didn’t know it had. Go and try them, but above, be safe and vigilant while you drive!
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