Phones could be the keys to your car

Dan Carney • E-mail

So far, the cell phone’s primary contribution to driving has been the emergence of the even more oblivious driver, distracted, eyes wandering, meandering in the lane sometimes like a drunk. But the phone — or more specifically, the smartphone, handheld computer or other mobile computing device — is poised to give drivers the futuristic capabilities of the Batmobile’s remote control.

Recent concept cars such as the Rinspeed iChange and the Chrysler Global Electric Motorcars Peapod have embraced Apple’s popular iPhone as a device not only for making phone calls or playing music, but as the key to starting the car.

That might sound like an impractical futuristic application of smartphone technology, but in fact, that and many more innovative uses of handheld computers are coming to market in the near future.

How near? This fall the car-sharing service Zipcar will launch a free iPhone application that will let its customers (“Zipsters”) locate available cars in their vicinity, reserve the one they want — after reviewing relevant information if they are unfamiliar with the car — and pay for it.

It gets even more interesting when the customer approaches the reserved Zipcar. It's hard enough for an owner and driver to find a car in a parking lot, but it's even tougher to find a shared car that was parked by the previous driver.

Go ahead, honk the horn
Zipcar’s iPhone app will let customers honk the horn on the car they have reserved so they can find it more easily. The press of another on-screen virtual button unlocks the door so the customer can get in and drive away.

“From inspiration to ignition, we want to make the Zipcar experience as seamless, distinct and fun as possible,” said chief technical officer Luke Schneider. “Smartphones make that even easier.”

Zipcar is able to do this because of the specialized electronic controller the company installs in its shared cars that lets customers unlock and drive away cars without concern about them being stolen.

“We’ve seen our fair share of fraud and attempted theft,” said Schneider, explaining that its new iPhone program will continue to provide Zipcar’s current degree of security to prevent unauthorized use of its cars.

Zipcar An iPhone "app," or application, available later this summer will let Zipcar customers use their phones to find out information about available rental cars and make reservations.

Car manufacturers could build in their own specialized equipment that extends other smartphones’ capabilities beyond that of Zipcar’s iPhone application to include things such as using the phone as the key to start the car, or using it start the car remotely, as some cars do today using a radio transmitter built into the key fob.

“In theory, (the possibilities) are endless, but for security reasons a lot of things can only be done in concept cars,” said Hans Roth, director of business development and marketing for Harman Becker Automotive Systems GmbH. The company provided the iPhone interface and infotainment system in the iChange concept car.

The iChange, a concept car by Swiss specialty car maker Rinspeed, is a lithium-ion battery-powered electric car. It uses a futuristic, high-efficiency Harman-Becker infotainment system which incorporates an iPhone dock. When docked, the iPhone authenticates the driver just like a key would, letting the driver start the car.

The Peapod is a neighborhood electric vehicle planned for production, and it uses a similar iPhone dock to start the car.

“Such concept cars are there to show what is possible,” Roth said. But for production vehicles used by real drivers in traffic, “usability is more important than feasibility,” he said.

“There is a lot of richness consumers are used to in their handheld devices and they want to use that in their cars,” he said. The challenge is making those features accessible to a person who is driving the car, considering the small screen size and the distraction.

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