Hyundai and Kia have announced that they are in the development of predictive shifting. The very first of its kind, Information and Communication Technology (ITC) Connected Shift transmission could change how all automatic cars work in the future.
With the use of cameras and radar, the system scans the road and traffic to make its predictions. Elevation, curvature, gradient, traffic, and road events are all recorded. That information is then given to an ‘artificial intelligent algorithm’ which then predicts the optimum gear before it is needed.
So, if you are driving and are approaching a curved road, the system will shift down to anticipate the reduced speed. Or, you are entering the freeway, it could pick that up and put your car into sport mode for increased acceleration. It would be able to pick up traffic in front of you and act appropriately.
Hyundai has even more plans for predictive shifting, even during development. In the future, it could communicate with traffic signals and learn the driver’s habits.
This system would decrease the number of shifts made on the road, the estimate given was up to 43 percent. It could also increase the lifespan of your brakes, by using lower gears to slow down the use of brakes will decrease.
With the pressing low emissions requirement from Europe, this technology could have to compete with electric vehicles, however, there is still plenty of time and it is nice to see advancement in automatic transmission.