ALKHOBAR, 23 January 2007 — Customizing cars is an increasingly popular pursuit among young Saudis. Chrome accessories, souped up engines and fancy paint jobs are the most noticeable vehicle enhancements. However, perhaps the time has come to separate the men from the boys in this area. Just take a look at the ways in which adding consumer electronics hardware can offer a truly customized content experience within a vehicle.
At CES, Sony had on display a Scion xA, a supermini car sold in the United States by Toyota’s Scion brand and sold in the Middle East as the Toyota xA. The Scion xA is normally a five-door hatchback designed for and marketed to the Generation Y crowd. The vehicle is supposed to provide loads of fun for under $13,000. Sony proved that if you add another $100,000 of consumer electronics accessories to the vehicle, its fun quotient can be similarly multiplied.
First, Sony’s team of mechanics got rid of all those boring doors and bolted on some motorized clamshell entry portals instead. Next, they added 15 LCDs, the largest, a 42-inch Bravia display in the car’s roof. A PlayStation 3 was tossed in to send HD content throughout the vehicle. That took care of the video, next it was time to upgrade the audio.
The Scion featured some of Sony’s hottest new Xplod products (www.xplodsony.com), unveiled at the Specialty Equipment Market Association (SEMA) Show back in October. The car was kitted out with Sony’s slim subwoofers and amplifiers which take up less room and can be tucked into out of the way places in both pick-up trucks and compact sports vehicles. With 10 small amps, six subs and two-way speakers, a component system and the head unit with Bluetooth capability, the Scion was outfitted with the latest audio gear.
For display purposes (basically to make the vehicle look cool) some of the speakers were exposed and floating behind the front seats, but in real life, the audio system could be installed differently to enable more passenger or cargo space.
Sony wasn’t the only major vendor with a focus on enhanced audio and video for vehicles. Pioneer, Dolby, JVC and Harman Kardon were just a few of the companies who made major announcements in the vehicle hardware segment at CES. Even Microsoft got into the action.
During his keynote, Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates was joined on stage by Ford Motor Company’s Mark Fields, to introduce the Microsoft-Ford “Sync” partnership, which aims to take the connected experience to the car. Microsoft auto software will connect devices into the vehicle allowing consumers to sync calls and other content with their car audio system. The fully upgradable technology will be available in a dozen Ford car models this year.