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5 Car Trends to Look for

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Are self-driving vehicles on the mainstream horizon?

Likely anyone paying attention to the world of technology or the world of cars knows that big advancements are coming to both fields as they are so ingrained with each other. Here are 5 of the most significant car trends coming in the near future.

Autonomous

The most familiar most talked about car trend on the horizon is autonomous cars. While fully autonomous vehicles for the public are about 5 -10 years down the road, many manufacturers have vehicles that have autonomous features like self-parking, lane assists, and other smaller pieces. Almost every new vehicle coming onto the market has a full system of cameras that surround the vehicle, adaptive cruise control, and sensors galore that check for possible collisions.

Built-in Data and Wifi

One of the big standard technologies already out is having Wifi built into the vehicles. Several manufacturers from Ford, Chevy, Hyundai, and many others already have this, but several are also working to connect a lot of the things you might do with your cell phone or laptop into the vehicle especially as more autonomous vehicles come out to the market. Furthermore, even the U.S. Department of Transportation has proposed rules that will require all new cars be able to talk to each other beginning in 2020 in an effort to reduce traffic accidents and fatalities.

In the meantime, companies like Ford are bringing the Amazon Echo and its assistant Alexa into some of its cars so that you can command your car to do certain things for you in the near future. The only question really being debated about any of the integrations of your car with these technologies is what to do with the data that is generated.

Bringing Back the Old

Reinventions of the old have also become a thing. Many manufacturers are bringing back old lines of vehicles with new conceptualizations while other companies continue to put out models in their mainstay model lines. Ford is bringing back its Ford Ranger and Ford Bronco; VW is bringing back its 70s micro-bus as a self-driving, electric concept (seen above); and Ford continues to add to its F-150 line while Toyota adds to its Camry line. Old is coming back and, in some cases, here to stay.

Photo: Consumer Reports

Garnering to Millennials

While all this is happening, car companies are also trying to find ways to entice Millennials with special features built into new vehicles. According to JD Power, millennials make up 28 percent of the new car market. So many manufacturers are coming up with concept vehicles that they hope will make us jump on them. Fiat Chrysler introduced its Portal with features like plug, play, and share anything from music, video, pictures, and other content as well as face and voice recognition to identify passengers and remember preferences. Toyota released its concept FT-4X which has features for an urban camping experience from door handle water bottles to some really awesome features like built-in sleeping bags and a changeable interior for whatever you might need to move or fit into your vehicle.

Photo: CarScoops

Bigger Vehicles

Millennials aren’t the only ones wanting bigger vehicles and the manufacturers have been responding by building more crossovers and more SUVs in general. While Nissan continues to put out its Rogue and Ford shows off its EcoSport, GMC revealed a smaller Terrain and Mazda showed its new CX-5. Other manufacturers continue to bring more of them to the market as well. The crossovers increasingly have better gas mileage and are more versatile than the smaller cars making them convenient for younger families, those that make deliveries, or even people who need a taller vehicle for ease of getting in and out of them. At the same time, they are also putting out bigger vans and SUVs including VW’s forthcoming Atlas and Subaru’s Viziv-7 concept.

In general, for the future of cars, you can expect some bigger, better, self-driving, functional vehicles that almost everyone will want.

Automobiles

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