Drawing the line - Onboard data is a boon, but it comes with dangers

摘要

On a recent road trip to go duck hunting in Arkansas, my buddy David casually touched a button on the dashboard of his Silverado pickup and announced, "We're four-and-a-half hours into the trip, I'm getting 19 miles to the gallon on average - up to 33 mpg when we're in V-4 mode - the pressure problem in the right front tire has evened out, we're averaging 58 miles an hour, and it looks like we're going to go a total of around 320 miles." Can you imagine what it would've cost to give a driver that kind of instant information in 1975 when Chevy launched the Silverado nameplate? Assuming you even could have developed workable electronics with engine technology of that era, an onboard computer capable of processing that data would've been so big you'd need the entire pickup bed to carry the thing around.