Fine as long as they stick to doing more efficiently what the driver wants.

I hope they don't start trying to make decisons on behalf of the driver - some Airbus models had a few crashes because their fly-by-wire systems refused to perform some emergency manouevres not thought of by the software developers.

Posted by: Philip Chalmers on February 24, 2003 05:55 AM

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So called "drive by wire" systems such as the one described in the article are becoming more common. I'm pretty sure that Corvette's have used electronic throttle control since 1997 and I think that BMW has used it for several years as well.

The Corvette team at GM did a lot of research into what is possible with computer controlled braking systems in the late 1980's (about the time electronically controlled ABS started showing up on high-end cars) and most of what is described in this article was mentioned. I'm not sure how much of that has made it into the modern Corvette but I know that a large portion of what the various ESP systems can do are as a result of automatically manipulating the brakes, engine, and transmisssion.

Jeep also pioneered the uses of the same type of controls for it's 4 wheel drive systems when the Grand Cherokee was redesigned several years ago and has gone a step further with the Liberty in being able to re-tune the engine while in 4 wheel low to provide more torque at low speeds.

The Chrysler Crossfire (scheduled for production in the next couple of years -- I think it's going to be a 2005 model) uses a similar system for braking. The review I read of it (it may have been in a recent Autoweek) gave a very negative opinion of these brakes due to the lack of driver feedback (the reviewer said that there was almost no pedal feel).

Two interesting asides on this:

1) One of the guys at work had a late 90's Corvette (this car has a throttle by wire system). He had a sensor go bad getting on the highway and was unable to go faster than 35 mph.

2) GM uses electronic braking on 1999 (maybe 2000) and newer 1/2 ton full size pickups. When they first came out, there were problems with the brake systems failing intermitantly. I know the problems have been resolved but that's just scarey (or maybe just an indication to avoid GM vehicles with "drive by wire" systems).

Posted by: Matt Haas on February 24, 2003 01:41 PM

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