The new tech is a Brake-by-Wire system controlled by a touch-sensitive pad.
I did my best to extract details from the article's mountain of seo fluff. I think Bosch is trying to maximize complexity of a safety-critical system by deeply integrating it into all the other bits of the car.
Okay. We do build war aircraft that way and they're awesome but they also need a steady stream of $billions to keep them flying.
My recommendation if Bosch wants to be a radical leader in auto tech, invent tactile controls and place them where they can be reached w/o taking eyes off of roads.
Then blow everyone away by inventing non-blinding headlights.
Non-blinding headlights already exist. Modern projection headlights can map where the light ends up on the road to illuminate your path while avoiding oncoming traffic. It just isn't widely adopted (in the US at least) as of yet.
It is here and sucks on curvy roads. My commute is down a mountain canyon and if I'm on the outside of a curve (turning left) the incoming traffic does not detect my headlights and I'm blinded for the entire curve. I want them banned. How hard is switching between high and low beams?
Adaptive headlights have only been approved for use in the US for ~3 years. They were sold in cars in the US before that, but the adaptive function was disabled.
> I think Bosch is trying to maximize complexity of a safety-critical system by deeply integrating it into all the other bits of the car.
Wait until you hear about how the brake pedal works in hybrids and EVs!
I'm only joking a little. There are good reasons to integrate the brakes with electronics in the car, with regenerative braking being the smallest of them.
I'm largely there with you... I've frankly always had mixed feelings about it. Nothing like having your brakes or steering lose pressure while driving down the highway.
That said, steering without at least hydrolic/power assist is rough on your forearms.
A vehicle setup without power steering is a lot different than a vehicle with inoperative power steering.
For one thing, they usually give you a bigger wheel, which helps with leverage. Power steering enables different steering geometries which likely wouldn't have been put together on a vehicle without power steering also.
Exclusive brake by wire and/or steer by wire seem like they will add confusion and delay, and perhaps increased risk of injury when dealing with disabled vehicles. At least in my life, it's been pretty handy to be able to get a non-responsive vehicle into neutral and push it to somewhere else in order to get it out of the way of traffic or to have better access to repair it. That often means using the vehicle steering to help direct it to a good spot, and the vehicle brakes to stop it when it gets there. Accelerator-by-wire is more acceptable, as vehicle without working electrics doesn't need a working accelerator pedal; I have driven one vehicle with what I assume was drive by wire with significant latency, it wasn't enjoyable, but it was usable.
I was thinking about exactly this possibility just a few weeks ago. Always nice to see a new, innovative technology that allows higher granularity in control, without pushing additional bloat or further limiting other areas of user controls..
To anyone wondering this essentially turns your brake pedal into a gas-like brake pedal.
Now what I'm wondering is, can we tie this all to the brake-light brightness?
As a species, people perceive brightness non-linearly and it even differs between individuals and with age. You would want to have a group of break lights could you light up in relation to the braking Force. 30% brightness is hard to figure out but one of three brake lights is easier to grock.
When you're on a highway at 75-80mph in Phoenix towards the evening sun, and see a couple brake-lights ahead it can help understand the massive difference in terms of do I need to slam my own brakes or just take my foot off the accelerator alone.
brake lights are already disconnected from the brake pedal. many ev brake lights will come one based on deceleration, without touching the brake pedal.
Terrible slop of an article that doesn’t say a single thing about why this new technology (brake-by-wire with a touch-sensitive pad) is better than existing approaches, other than it being “more sensitive.”
The new tech is a Brake-by-Wire system controlled by a touch-sensitive pad.
I did my best to extract details from the article's mountain of seo fluff. I think Bosch is trying to maximize complexity of a safety-critical system by deeply integrating it into all the other bits of the car.
Okay. We do build war aircraft that way and they're awesome but they also need a steady stream of $billions to keep them flying.
My recommendation if Bosch wants to be a radical leader in auto tech, invent tactile controls and place them where they can be reached w/o taking eyes off of roads.
Then blow everyone away by inventing non-blinding headlights.
Non-blinding headlights already exist. Modern projection headlights can map where the light ends up on the road to illuminate your path while avoiding oncoming traffic. It just isn't widely adopted (in the US at least) as of yet.
It is here and sucks on curvy roads. My commute is down a mountain canyon and if I'm on the outside of a curve (turning left) the incoming traffic does not detect my headlights and I'm blinded for the entire curve. I want them banned. How hard is switching between high and low beams?
[dead]
Adaptive headlights have only been approved for use in the US for ~3 years. They were sold in cars in the US before that, but the adaptive function was disabled.
> I think Bosch is trying to maximize complexity of a safety-critical system by deeply integrating it into all the other bits of the car.
Wait until you hear about how the brake pedal works in hybrids and EVs!
I'm only joking a little. There are good reasons to integrate the brakes with electronics in the car, with regenerative braking being the smallest of them.
Are you saying none of them mechanically push the brake pads?
[dead]
I'm suspicious of any physical control being replaced with anything touch sensitive.
waiting for... doesn't work when feet are wet.
Honestly, I think *-by-wire technology can exist, but I don't think it should be trusted to cost-reduction-at-any-cost manufacturers.
I've heard the cybertruck steer-by-wire has a control lag. And then there's the no-mechanical-escape door handles.
I'm largely there with you... I've frankly always had mixed feelings about it. Nothing like having your brakes or steering lose pressure while driving down the highway.
That said, steering without at least hydrolic/power assist is rough on your forearms.
A vehicle setup without power steering is a lot different than a vehicle with inoperative power steering.
For one thing, they usually give you a bigger wheel, which helps with leverage. Power steering enables different steering geometries which likely wouldn't have been put together on a vehicle without power steering also.
Exclusive brake by wire and/or steer by wire seem like they will add confusion and delay, and perhaps increased risk of injury when dealing with disabled vehicles. At least in my life, it's been pretty handy to be able to get a non-responsive vehicle into neutral and push it to somewhere else in order to get it out of the way of traffic or to have better access to repair it. That often means using the vehicle steering to help direct it to a good spot, and the vehicle brakes to stop it when it gets there. Accelerator-by-wire is more acceptable, as vehicle without working electrics doesn't need a working accelerator pedal; I have driven one vehicle with what I assume was drive by wire with significant latency, it wasn't enjoyable, but it was usable.
2024
I was thinking about exactly this possibility just a few weeks ago. Always nice to see a new, innovative technology that allows higher granularity in control, without pushing additional bloat or further limiting other areas of user controls..
To anyone wondering this essentially turns your brake pedal into a gas-like brake pedal.
Now what I'm wondering is, can we tie this all to the brake-light brightness?
As a species, people perceive brightness non-linearly and it even differs between individuals and with age. You would want to have a group of break lights could you light up in relation to the braking Force. 30% brightness is hard to figure out but one of three brake lights is easier to grock.
I thought of such a beast for a long while... that it would be cool to have an LED array that increased in numbers based on brake pressure.
Aside: anyone else ever been driving behind a large vehicle with the brake lights out? That's a not fun exercise right there.
how does this improve the driving experience?
Is "i wonder how hard they're breaking" really a problem?
People drive too close to each other already
When you're on a highway at 75-80mph in Phoenix towards the evening sun, and see a couple brake-lights ahead it can help understand the massive difference in terms of do I need to slam my own brakes or just take my foot off the accelerator alone.
brake lights are already disconnected from the brake pedal. many ev brake lights will come one based on deceleration, without touching the brake pedal.
Terrible slop of an article that doesn’t say a single thing about why this new technology (brake-by-wire with a touch-sensitive pad) is better than existing approaches, other than it being “more sensitive.”