SIGNALS

Start saving up now. In about 20 years, you'll have to buy another complete home theater. Except this one won't be at home. It will be in your car. Put in perspective, the Compact Disc is about 30 years old so 20 years isn't so far off. Like I say - start saving now.

As you know, car technology is moving as fast as a BMW i8 on an unrestricted section of the Autoban. In particular, vehicle electronics is transforming the driving experience. For starters, it's estimated that in 5 short years, about 75% of cars will be connected to the internet; the buzzword acronym is IoV (Internet of Vehicles). Moreover, autonomous (self-driving) vehicles could begin mass production by 2020 as well; there could be 1 million autonomous vehicles on the road by 2035.

Many new cars already feature advanced driver assistance systems (ADAS), that is, safety features that can help keep you in your lane, sense an impending collision and apply prebraking, warn of pedestrians, etc. That stuff is already old hat. The next step is to develop cars with the ability to learn. Then they can drive themselves.

Considering the current state of driver distraction, taking humans out of the driver's seat would probably dramatically improve safety. And while safety is certainly an important goal of autonomous vehicles, consumers will also want convenience and entertainment. That's why car companies are courting companies like Google (Android Auto) and Apple (CarPlay) and Samsung, and planning next-gen mobile infotainment technology.

With your car on autopilot, and assuming laws permit it, there's no reason why you couldn't completely detach from the road. Then the interesting question is how you'll spend that extra leisure drive time. On short trips, you'll probably just read the news and check the forecast. But longer trips would give you enough quality time to kick back and listen to music and watch a movie. And we're not talking about crummy rear-seat entertainment either.

It's already easy to stream audio/video data to a car. Freed of the obligation to watch the road, you could dig as deeply as you wanted into entertainment menus and sources and find just the music and movies you want. After that, the only limitation is the playback hardware. The cabin design of people-driven cars must be a compromise between driving and everything else we do in a car, with the priority given to the business of driving. In an autonomous car, the priorities switch. The cabin can be designed with entertainment in mind. Many OEM sound systems are already pretty good; now add a decent OLED screen and the possibilities become interesting.

Actually, in an autonomous car, the traditional driving experience itself is nonexistent or at least relatively unimportant to the potential buyer. With those traditional metrics off the table, how does a car company persuade you to buy their model and not a competitors? Easy - by the entertainment experience it provides. In today's cars, carmakers provide good sound systems not as a huge selling point or because it particularly differentiates their car from another, but because it provides high profits. In a driverless car, the quality of the AV system will be a major selling point and a point of differentiation. Surely, entirely new bespoke companies will spring up to design and manufacture the very high-quality mobile AV systems that carmakers and their customers will demand.

A theater with comfy chairs and high-quality AV, and seat belts and airbags. Give it 20 years or so and you'll be good to go.