The 2015 North American International Auto Show was not the only big industry event to feature Maserati last month. January is also time for the Consumer Electronics Show, where leading names in the tech industry put on the corporate version of a science fair. There, a Maserati Quattroporte GTS provided the basis for the QNX technology concept car.
If you aren’t familiar with QNX, they’re an operating system and software company that was purchased by Blackberry in 2010. Their QNX OS, which is similar to Unix, is a specialized “microkernel-based” operating system. That probably means about as much to you as it does to us, but the gist is it’s small and fast where other operating systems are large and clunky. In other words, it’s just the kind of thing you might want to patch into a car.
You can see in this video that the folks at QNX gutted a lot of the QP’s dashboard and replaced it with a full LCD instrument panel and an almost Tesla-esque touchscreen. They also seem to have done away with most of the air-conditioning vents, which is why this is still in the concept phase. Based on demonstrations in the video, the QNX system appears to be incredibly responsive and customizable, which is something modern car buyers can certainly appreciate.
QNX also got special attention for the Advanced Driver Assistance Systems (ADAS) they installed into this Maserati. All of the mirrors in the car have been replaced with display screens connected to cameras. These help to eliminate blindspots and other burdens of physics that limit the information a mirror can give to a driver. The cameras can be adjusted at any time to view obstacles and other traffic.
Another ADAS feature installed in the car is a strip of LED lights at the base of the windshield which reflect onto the glass and add a visual cue to radar sensors that detect obstacles in the car’s path. QNX claims to have a pedigree in safety technology, so it’s not out of the ordinary for them to provide drivers with these advantages.
You can see more pictures of how the ADAS cameras work on Engadget. This QNX concept car has us excited for the future of automotive technology. Visit us at Maserati of Raleigh if you’re interested in discussing it further.
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