FORD, Cars Get Smarter

Cars get smarter. Ford has seen a great deal of success with its Sync voice-controlled car electronics system. In surveys, 32 percent of buyers said Sync was important or critical in their decisions to buy a Ford vehicle. Ford hit its target of selling a million vehicles with Sync last May. About 81 percent of customers are satisfied with Sync and 77 percent would recommend it. This week, Ford said that developers can create apps that can run on Sync, it will give users 3G or Wi-Fi access inside the car, and it has redesigned its dashboard to be electronics friendly. You can plug in your iPods, phones, memory cards and other devices into the deck.Not every car is going to be so connected in the future. But Ford’s moves show that the car companies are finally moving to an annual cycle for driving new technology into their vehicles, instead of the usual five years. It’s also heartening to hear that we’re not all heading for a big pile-up. Ford says that Sync lets drivers choose a new song with voice commands in 4.9 seconds, while it takes 30 seconds without it. The company is trying to minimize distractions for the driver even as it adds more stuff for you to do while you’re driving. Ford was just one example of myriad other car-related announcements at CES.