Hyundai’s Latest Concept, a Car Interior of the Future, Really Listens to You

0 0 Editorial Team November 25, 2018 Edit this post

By Alexander Stoklosa, Car and Driver

Hyundai has had a strong presence at the CES technology show for years, so we've covered a fair number of its future-think projects, autonomous-car advancements, and even a robotic exoskeleton it designed to help those with trouble walking—or humans looking for super strength. One idea that keeps bubbling up into Hyundai's CES displays is how to negotiate the car interior of the future, and this year the automaker has a new Intelligent Personal Cockpit concept that tackles the idea head-on.

Previously, Hyundai's dabbling in next-generation car interiors involved a snazzy infotainment concept in 2013, fresh head-up-display thinking in 2015, and a car that literally docks with one's home at last year's show. The Intelligent Personal Cockpit embraces artificial intelligence and enhanced voice recognition as the future driver's bedfellows.

As Hyundai imagines it, our automotive future includes the ability to bark orders at our cars to initiate everything from the opening of a sunroof to climate-control adjustments to locking or unlocking the doors. The Intelligent Personal Cockpit at the automaker's CES booth leverages SoundHound voice recognition and Internet of Things (IoT) networking to enable car-to-home commands such as turning on lights before arriving home and even multiple-part queries such as asking the car to adjust the temperature and commanding it to manipulate a control inside your home in the same sentence. Hyundai's example? A driver saying to the car, "Tell me what the weather is like tomorrow and turn off the lights in our living room."

Less impressive—or, at least, less new—is the artificial-intelligence aspect of Hyundai's project. The automaker pitches it as a "proactive assistant," which, translated, means it acts more or less like Google's predictive algorithms and can remind you when to leave for habitual destinations such as your office or the gym. Creepier components include a "steering-wheel biosensor" and a heart-rate monitor that can sense stress and "provide access to online visual consultation with a doctor"—which sounds to us like it might stress out the driver more. Strap in; the future's gonna be weird.