Ford S-MAX Get Smart, Talk to Each Other

Kicked off on Wednesday in the United States, Ford's attempts to show the world what it has been working on for the past few years have expanded to Europe. The car maker's vehicle-to-vehicle communications system was presented at the CoCarX event in Dusseldorf, on two S-MAX vehicles that have been taught to talk to one another.

For the project, Ford relied on the new mobile communications network LTE (Long Term Evolution), a technology which allows for faster data transmission. The two Ford vehicles are able to tell each other about possible hazard, driving condition and traffic information.

On Wednesday, in the US, Ford announced how serious it is about making cars smarter by announcing the start of a joint project, with other manufacturers and government authorities, that aims to create the required communications standard needed for different branded cars to talk to each other.

Beginning the next few months, and until 2013, a joint task force (comprising the Intelligent Transportation Systems division of the Department of Transportation and the car makers organized by the Crash Avoidance Metrics Partnership) will begin working on the creation of this common communication standard, which will be tested on two prototype Ford Taurus model.

“Intelligent vehicles, able to send and receive messages in fractions of a second, could help warn drivers of dangers neither they nor their hazard monitoring safety systems could spot, be it because of the distance to the hazard or obstacles that block the view ahead, such as heavy traffic or bends in the road,” said Christian Ress, connectivity technical expert.