Just like Ford’s Model T, which debuted in 1908, today’s automobiles have four tires, a steering wheel, and seats. Henry Ford would have little trouble behind the wheel, but he would be completely baffled by the technology under the hood. Cars today are, in many ways, high-performance computers that can race at 70-plus miles per hour. Automotive digitization has led to important transformations, but the networked era has only just begun to tap its ultimate potential: the driverless car. Thanks to the advent of ubiquitous computing, various forms of semiautonomous technology, such as adaptive cruise control, automatic parallel parking, and collision warnings, are already widespread.
