How AI is transforming the way we drive and what we drive

Anyone of a certain age probably remembers the day Ozzy Osbourne got his new BMW 7 Series. The ageing rocker, back in the early 2000s, was topping the TV charts with his reality show The Osbournes and in one episode the former Black Sabbath frontman took delivery of a shiny, new, expensive BMW.

This being an E65 7 Series (for the BMW product code anoraks among you), it had a sophisticated new voice control system, with which Ozzy simply couldn’t cope. Or, more accurately, the BMW’s voice recognition software couldn’t cope with the slurred Birmingham accent, addled by years of substance abuse. It was funny at first, and then it seemed to get crueller the longer the camera lingered.

Scroll forward 20-some years and voice control in cars is common. Each year, car makers launch a new series of tweaks and changes which aim to make the in-car digitised voices sound more human and react in a more human manner. Not so long ago, if you asked the dashboard of your Mercedes-Benz to tell you a joke, it would respond with deadpan perfection that: “I’m sorry, my programmers were German ...”

That kind of chatty sophistication is about to take a gigantic leap forward with the arrival in cars of generative AI, often fuelled by the software developed for ChatGPT. Every university student’s favourite essay aid is coming to the dashboards of our cars, and not in some far-off future – you can already get your orders in for delivery this summer.

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Volkswagen was one of the first out of the ChatGPT gate, announcing in January at the Las Vegas Consumer Electronics Show (CES) that the software would form the basis of a new in-car digital assistant, called IDA. IDA can do the usual in-car voice command work of turning the cabin temperature up or down, or reading out a text message but with ChatGPT it can, in theory, also replicate human speech patterns and chat back to you as if it had a mind of its own.

“Volkswagen has always democratised technology and made it accessible to the many. This is simply ingrained in our DNA‚” said Kai Grünitz, VW’s head of technical development.

“As a result, we are now the first volume manufacturer to make this innovative technology a standard feature in vehicles from the compact segment upwards. Thanks to the seamless integration of ChatGPT and strong collaboration with our partner, Cerence, we are offering our drivers added value and direct access to the AI-based research tool. This also underlines the innovative strength of our new products.”

Peugeot, too, is integrating ChatGPT into its cars. It will be rolled out to the latest versions of all of the company’s passenger cars this year. As with the VW system, it can handle tasks from the mundane to the complex, such as giving you a virtual tour of a major landmark as you drive past, or organising an impromptu quiz to stave off boredom among your kids on a long journey.

Mercedes, too, is at this. Also showing off new technology at the CES, Mercedes said its generative AI assistant will learn your habits and your needs as you drive, and offer you helpful suggestions before you ask for them yourself, such as dialling ahead to the office if you’re running late, or automatically turning on a soothing seat massage and softening the cabin’s ambient lighting if you’re feeling stressed.

The system also works hand in glove with the navigation on the car’s touchscreen, and can flag up potential hazards that are near your vehicle, such as a cyclist hovering in your blind spot.

“The Mercedes-Benz user experience of tomorrow will be hyper-personalised. With generative AI, our MBUX Virtual Assistant brings more trust and empathy to the relationship between car and driver. Thanks to our MB.OS chip-to-cloud architecture our future vehicles will provide customers with exactly what they need when they need it” said Magnus Östberg, Mercedes’ chief software officer.

Quite how irritating all of this electronic intervention might become is yet to be seen and, equally, it’s very much up in the air as to how much the computers in our cars will learn about us, and quite how that might affect our privacy in the years ahead. Car makers will claim that everything is GDPR-compliant and that any data us anonymised. But if the machines can learn faster than us, who truly knows what happens next?

This is all about in-car comfort and entertainment but the real power of AI in motoring is actually going to be about how cars are made. Already BMW’s styling department says AI is helping its human designers to make sure the new cars they’re working on automatically comply with international legislation such as regarding the height and position of lights and indicators.

Next-generation AI could even automatically adjust a car’s shape as it’s being sketched to make it safer and less dangerous for pedestrians, for example.

AI is already helping to make cars more efficiently and, therefore, more affordably. By the end of last year Renault reckoned that using Metaverse AI to predict when parts of its car factories would need maintenance had saved it €270 million in shutdown costs. AI-equipped software, based on immersive video games, is already helping to train Renault technicians how best to paint a new car, which is not only beneficial from a financial point of view but also helps to find ways to save on paint itself, which has a tremendous environmental benefit.

Meanwhile, “digital twin” models of Renault’s factories can run simulations of the production of new cars around the clock and at vastly higher speeds than real life, helping to identify weak points in the manufacturing and logistics chain, and ensuring that factories – and their employees – can keep waste to a minimum.

Not only can AI help to make cars better and make it (potentially) easier for us to interact with them, it can also help them to go further. That’s not some nebulous marketing phrase, it’s actually more about AI helping the designers and engineers of electric car batteries to maximise their lifespan.

Eatron Technologies, an AI pioneer, has teamed up with About:Energy, a UK-based battery tech and data company to try to apply AI’s beady eye to batteries and making them work better for longer. In this instance, what the AI does is constantly monitor the battery’s health as it’s being used, and try to predict how the battery will age with time. It can then compare that prediction against real-life data and in doing so help to create a more holistic picture of battery health and longevity.

“Implementing our novel AI-powered intelligent battery software layer with this revolutionary AI-DE can extend a battery pack’s first life by up to 20 per cent,” said Dr Umut Genc, CEO of Eatron. “This makes it possible for car makers to design optimally sized, more cost-effective battery packs, and this actively contributes to our sustainable e-mobility goals by reducing raw material consumption and CO2 emissions.”

“The use of our advanced electrochemical models vastly streamlines AI model training and this facilitates both ease of integration and a reduced time-to-market for car makers and battery suppliers,” said Dr Kieran O’Regan, Co-Founder and COO of About:Energy.

“The high-fidelity modelling reduces the need for physical experiments, while delivering a clearer, more accurate picture of battery health. Armed with this information, an AI-DE-equipped system can deliver not just a longer battery lifetime but faster charging times too.”

Ozzy might have had problems getting his dashboard to talk back to him but if such technology can help to make a new generation of electric cars more efficient both to drive and to build, then perhaps even dedicated metal-heads can forgive and forget.