Bloomberg:
The next frontier in digital advertising may be your car’s windshield.
Automakers, technology companies and glass manufacturers are teaming up to turn the display that graces the front of an iPhone into the windshield of a car — one that can show ads, directions and vehicle information to the person behind the wheel.
The advent of connected cars is creating a new sales battleground, and using a vehicle’s windshield may be the next way to pitch more products and services to consumers.
The closer we get to self-driving cars, the more inevitable (unfortunately) this will become.
Hopefully, some legislators will think to ban windshield advertisements as potentially hazardous distractions.
I don’t see this taking off. Not only because the the hazards, but because it makes no sense. By the time we have self-driving tech to the point where you could do this safely, you won’t need windshields. Cars won’t need to be built and laid out like they are now – we could rotate the seats to the center and do work, play a game, whatever. You could even let the car drive overnight, let it refuel etc while you sleep, etc. But for most short, commuting style trips, people will work or read on a variety of screens, not necessarily a windshield.
“Into your tent I’ll creep.”
They may not be thinking of the kind of ads we have today which stupidly come on saying, “Look at me!” By the time technology advances to make “windshield ads” safe, they would also most likely be more intelligently targeted to the individual, as well as being context aware to the point of offering suggestions for where to eat or where to pick up beach apparel or how to check in at a state or national park.
A couple years ago, our family drove to the White Mountains in New Hampshire. Choosing to drive up to the crest in the car, after paying the admission, we were given an audio CD to play in the car as we ascended. It was pretty crude, but this new medium could easily provide a much more immersive and informative program.
No. Ads are classified as “free speech”. It would be very difficult to ban them outright.
Ugh.
Get a bike. It’s better than viagra according to the ads.
This is pointless. Besides the issue of being dangerous, it wouldn’t serve any need. As soon as people don’t need to watch the road, they’re going to focus their attention on their phone or computer that already has ads on it.
Ads aside, it seems to signal the reality that fully autonomous transportation is still further away than the current narrative suggests.
I already spend too much money on replacing windshields after driving on gravel roads.
It’s the new frontier. Anything goes.
If you want to do something, go ahead. Laws, rules, regulations and common sense are gallup for grabs.
I’m a few years out of my Constitutional Law classes, but I don’t think restrictions on commercial speech face the same “level of scrutiny” as restrictions on non-commercial speech. E.g., when was the last time we saw a tv commercial for cigarettes? Or “Joe Camel”? Or someone actually drinking alcohol in an alcohol ad?
Agree in part – would you buy a self-driving car that didn’t let the human take over in the event of a malfunction? Or one that didn’t let you look out front to see where it’s taking you? I don’t think the windshield is going anywhere anytime soon, and I’d prefer not to see anything there that isn’t relevant to the trip: speed, heading, fuel, directions and targeting reticle.
yeah there will be a transition period… but if the car is safe enough to have ads on a windshield, that implies that the driver doesn’t need to see the road, etc. That the car is fully autonomous and safe to drive itself even when the driver can’t see the road for the ads. And THAT implies that people won’t be ‘driving’ in the traditional sense… which takes us to this – if they’re not driving, are they going to be looking at the windshield? I doubt it.
Mind you this is going to need not only new tech, but it will be a generational shift. People who grew up driving will tend not to trust the systems. People who grow up with highly safe self-driving cars will view the older folks as silly.
True. But those were all outlawed in the US in very different days. And unfortunately, free speech wouldn’t even be the argument. It would be profits (or, euphamistically, “jobs”).
One major point almost everybody misses: questions of occupant safety won’t be resolved until all cars are self-driving cars. Until then we will still need seat belts, airbags, and occupant positioning that allows active and passive safety devices to work optimally.
This will probably be at least twenty years after the introduction of viable fully-self driving cars. (Which itself is in my opinion still many years away).