Gizmo Guy: A look at the future of gizmos on the road

A "smartphone on wheels," a "potential terrorist threat," or just a high-tech laughing matter?

Opinions run to extremes about today's teched-up vehicles, cars that don't just dial calls by voice command, read incoming text messages aloud, and direct you to the closest gas station, but also warn or correct when you steer out of a lane. Or apply the brakes if you get too close to a car ahead.

Tech-laden rides are big attention grabbers at the annual Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas.

Autotrader confirms that a large share of vehicle owners (56 percent) would rather switch brands than stick with one that doesn't offer the smart features they desire.

"But then in the next breath, these same respondents express fear over the talk of autonomous, self-driving cars, which are really extensions of the same theme," said Michelle Krebs, senior analyst with Autotrader, an online car seller/information site.

Fully "self-piloted" cars are being promoted by the likes of Audi, Mercedes-Benz, and Google as a safety feature looming "just around the corner." And yes, there's evidence the stuff can work.

Recent studies say cars upgraded with blind-spot proximity sensors and backup cameras suffer fewer accidents. Backup cameras will be standard in all cars, come 2018. And this trend, if it keeps up, could put a big dent (sorry) in the profits of insurance companies, reported Bloomberg Business Week, as they'd arguably have to lower premiums.

But fear not. There will be plenty of potholes to avoid before smart tech is polished and ubiquitous.

At the moment, the auto industry ups its profits by putting accident avoidance tech only in top models and expensive add-on packages, by charging extra for communications service, and by arguing that making all this stuff standard equipment would "eliminate" consumer choice.

On the other hand, we probably won't have self-driving cars legally running down the nation's highways until the tech is in every vehicle and they all communicate with each other, say, to "slow down 'cause there's trouble ahead."

As the average family holds on to a car for 12 years, and it may live longer for a second buyer, "it's going to take decades before we're all communicating on the same wavelength," said Michael McHale, Subaru of America's director of corporate communications.

Also sure to slow the boat: Automated technology scares people. Although the push-button-controlled elevator debuted in 1900, it took almost 50 years - and the introduction of a reassuring big red "stop" button - before folks would comfortably use that un-piloted people mover, NPR reported last week.

Recent revelations have given naysayers good cause to fear the worst - a potential Carmageddon of vehicles crashing into one another, masterminded by a computer savvy Dr. Evil:

Fiat-Chrysler recently recalled 1.4 million vehicles, after two savvy hackers - Charlie Miller and Chris Valasek - remotely seized control of a Web-connected Jeep Cherokee, and cut off its engine on a highway, while a willing participant was behind the wheel.

They'd wormed into the car's UConnect telematics system through a security gap in its Sprint wireless service. Not incidentally, their hack job was partly sparked by a Defense Advanced Research Project Agency (DARPA) grant, as was the following stunt, to teach the world a lesson about tech complacency.

GM's pioneering "OnStar" in-car communications/control system recently met its match with a DARPA-backed hacker who stashed a system-disrupting black box in the victimized car, sending wireless jamming signals to the car's all too unified mechanical-communications circuitry. (In theory, there should be a wall between them.)

A West Coast tech columnist recently complained of neighborhood cars' being broken into with no signs of entry. His conclusion? Troublemakers had invested in a low-cost amplifier that boosted the "please unlock me" signal put out by a lifted car door handle so it could reach the smart key in a nearby house. The author's advice? Stash the key in a signal-blocking refrigerator.

On YouTube, you'll find video of a "self-braking" Volvo crashing into two people. The driver didn't know that the basic accident avoidance mechanism that came standard reacts only to big hulks of metal. People-sensing costs extra.

"Every new technology has its learning curves, its shakedown cruises," Krebs said from Detroit.

On the lighter side, Gizmo Guy is happy to see Hollywood humorously driving home a message that car tech can be frivolous and badly executed. In Vacation, a retread of National Lampoon's  Vacation, Rusty Griswold is all grown up and taking his clan to Wally World in the dumbest smart car ever - a fictitious Tartan Prancer wagon billed as the "Honda of Albania."

Riffing on "blind spot detection" are fore and aft side view mirrors that let a Tartan driver enjoy his/her own back-of-the-head reflection.

Instead of copious bottle holders, door handles double as martini-glass holders. Who needs 4G connectivity when there's a pop-up CB radio?

But when Rusty presses the wrong buttons on the Tartan's key-fob controller, the car zooms away with no one in it - and blows up.

That could never really happen, right?

215-854-5960@JTakiff