Spotlight on Technology at the 2022 Detroit Auto Show
buckle up the detroit auto show is back tonight a glimpse into the future with must-see innovations ev advancements and state-of-the-art simulators join us as channel 7 puts the spotlight on technology it has been three long years without the sounds of revving engines and the excited cheers of auto enthusiasts in downtown detroit but the north american international auto show is back in the motor city good evening and welcome to huntington place i'm brian abel we are live in the middle of the action for this highly anticipated celebration of auto mobility and this year the show is bigger than ever before everything we love about the detroit auto show has grown beyond these four walls rolling into the iconic heart plaza on the best river fronts in america this indoor outdoor setup first in show history the major expansion promises to give car fanatics an immersive experience from virtual reality to ride in drives on next year's grand prix circuit but here in huntington place about 30 brands are surrounding me on the show floor tonight it is truly an impressive collection of new and rare vehicles 7 action news reporter sarah grimmer has been here all day as well following the big announcements and reveals and sarah what are the highlights brian there is so much to see at the auto show this year but this year it's all about showcasing the technology that exhibitors say will eventually be in our own cars in other words the future of the automobile industry is all around us electric planes cordless charging stations you drive your car and you park over the charging pad and you charge cars that smell then we've also brought in one more and that's called digital scent and dinosaurs the 2022 north american international auto show at huntington place is full of interactive exhibits and a clear theme the future's electric what we've developed is a cable and a connector system that actually liquid cools the cable and allows you to be able to charge it 500 amps and a thousand volts in the automobility corner dozens of exhibitors demonstrate how charging will soon be faster and more accessible at this booth specifically e-mobility tells us their charging stations will be able to fully charge select evs in 15 to 20 minutes you're certainly going to see more and more of these and while these exhibits tout the practicality of driving electric manufacturers like lincoln will sell you on the luxury you're seeing this this curved panoramic display so this is something that's new for us goes from coast to coast this allows us to show any kind of footage that we would want to put on there a july survey from consumer reports listed logistics vehicle range and overall cost as a top factor stopping americans from buying electric the 2022 detroit auto show looks to address and resolve each of those worries this foreshadows what you're going to see in our production evs you're also going to see a lot of ai at the auto show this year so we actually just ran over here to the moment ai booth we have megan she is the ceo and megan this booth is really cool can you talk to us about what you guys are showcasing here yes sarah so at mama ai we are developing ai that can detect seizures soda cardiac arrest strokes we look for major health events so sarah you look at this camel now close your eyes and as you can see it's saying usual is sleeping things like that it's like a blackout so if we could attack a blackout we could detect alcohol intoxication and several other events that affect 100 million people within the united states that are elderly and that have pre-existing conditions and mama ai we partner with gww to develop this so this is something thank you so much megan that you can actually put in your car to help out with safety when people are falling asleep at the wheel brian it's just the tip of the iceberg with all the technology that people can come and experience for themselves at the auto show this year incredible stuff sarah thank you detroit has been designing and defining the future of auto innovation for decades the auto show started as a small event if you can believe it back in 1907. since then we've seen flashy displays historic introductions and game-changing concepts the event growing into an international sensation putting the motor city on the map and now in 2022 detroit is once again driving the auto industry forward with a focus on technology and joining me now is thad zod the president of the detroit auto dealers association that thank you so much for being here appreciate the time so in this room there are about 30 semifinalists for north american car truck utility of the year correct how does that factor into the energy here and is there any particular one we should be on the lookout for well i mean the energy here is absolutely electric not only from the vehicles but from the vibe here right it's all new reimagined show so yeah the north american car and truck of the year adds to that energy and i would say the one eye to keep an eye on is probably the ford lightning it's getting a lot of buzz around here keep an eye out on that one all right so obviously there's been some changes since the last time the auto show was here including the time of year yes huge tell us about that how did we get to this moment we've looked at a lot of different months to talk to the manufacturers and see what they want to do as far as going to market and the way they market vehicles today has completely changed so they really want to get people behind the wheel to experience this technology and that's exactly what the consumers want as well so having it in september opening up to hart plaza area gives us all this wonderful space inside huntington place to do activations that you see behind us uh and experiences where these people can get behind a hybrid suv and go up a 40 degree hill and climb it right in huntington place literally inches from the roof line but so we're really excited about the time of year it's beautiful outside tonight the mustang reveal is going on right now in hart plaza i just walked over there walked back the crowd is buzzing couldn't do that in january absolutely we've said that over and over so many comments of people walking outside taking selfies smiling enjoying the you know the 61 foot tuck out front it is electric downtown detroit is going to be rocking these next couple weeks it's all very exciting and we are looking forward to the rest of the week thad thank you so much thanks for having us take care all right that was dad president the detroit auto dealers association so there is a lot of work that goes into the vehicles that we are seeing here tonight engineers at ford for example are changing how these cars are made with a dynamic driving simulator 7 action news reporter mike duffy shows us how it works [Music] gone are the days when car manufacturers like ford could only test it if they built it from the ground up while simulators have been around since the 1970s the technology has gotten so good that ford is now able to try out various road conditions and changes to the car's features all with just a push of a button robert rivally is ford's advanced driver assist system simulation technical specialist and he's showing us around we're standing in ford's brand new dynamic simulator lab he says the technology has come a long way from earlier simulators this is bigger better so we have more capability here what you're seeing in front of you is a platform that enables you to give an immersive experience to the driver and really that helps you understand and feel the emotions that you would feel driving a real vehicle the technology has already been used to develop ford's vehicles of the present and some great examples of our fine product that has come out would be maverick machi as well as the new ford lightning as well as of the future we're able to look at vehicles and drive vehicles that are still five to seven years out from customers hands or maybe even concepts that are ten or more years out of course i couldn't just take his word for it i had to get behind the wheel they're pulling away the stairs so we're about to get started i hope you're as excited as i am about this i started out slow so right now you're driving a maverick our new small pickup truck so this was developed using this simulator so this handles just like a maverick would i mean all the feels that i would experience in a maverick i'm experiencing right now correct the machine let me experience in an instant what it's like going from driving a ford maverick to driving the ford lightning yeah actually i would say this already feels different maybe a little smoother you are perceiving all the things that you should okay i also got to experience those same vehicles when different weather time of day and road conditions were applied oh yeah this is a rough road sometimes it even got so real watching the cars pass me by that my driver muscle memory just kicked in i just tried to signal it's good that you're that immersed all right hate to end it but i guess we got it all good things must come to an end sometimes well thank you i appreciate that we have so much more to come from the hearts of the motor city including an exclusive sneak peek of ford's next big launch plus electric solutions from a local startup the charging system that's helping cut costs and we are heading outside after the break a cruise through heart plaza [Music] the latest and greatest in auto innovation on display in downtown detroit but in hart plaza tonight it's all about the pony cars and that is where we find 7 action news reporter faraz javed for us brian you can't have all the fun you and sarah no no fun is happening here outside outside in hart plaza this is where things are happening people can do lots of things to see and do let me give you a quick taste so first of all air expire mobility experience this is where electric takeoff landing jet suits this is what people can experience here and of course when the gun when they get done with that they can take a look at all these monster trucks behind me now one of them is probably the world's first battery-powered monster truck now since this area is dedicated to ford you can have a taste of all generations of mustangs over here i'm standing between the sixth generation and the fourth generation mustang the biggest change between both of them and ford lovers know that it's the engine among all the other changes now the biggest thing that's coming to this section is the convoy that left from dearborn over 2 000 cars let's cue that video and take a look at all those cars heading here this stampede that's what they're calling and why they're coming here it's for the big reveal the seventh generation mustang is being revealed tonight at 8 15 but we've got exclusive look for you so stay tuned brian that's coming up next talk about t's can't wait for that for us thank you but one thing is clear the future is electric every year we are seeing more automakers roll out new evs as popular popularity grows so does the need for chargers detroit startup plug zen is developing technology that makes charging affordable for everyone plugged in is an ev charging manufacturing company we have developed an ev charging solution that allows 10 vehicles to be charged simultaneously wired or wirelessly we call it the evr system the ev all prototype has already been installed at the detroit smart parking lab which is a tech hub for ev innovators this system can cut the cost of installation and equipment by up to 50 percent it works with the main node which charges two vehicles owners can then add up to four more charging nodes for up to ten vehicles founder of plug zen q johnson says this is a solution for multi-family housing workplaces fleets cities and communities that have been overlooked for electric vehicles our motto is we're putting the ev in everybody being able to put an efficient charging system in these communities allows them to have a voice it allows them to have an impact when it comes to global warming because these communities believe it or not are sometimes more affected by global warming than other communities and the feedback has been all the same how soon can we get this more hot rods and hot tech to come we are heading back out onto the show floor a look at the gadgets and gizmos making headlines that's next [Music] [Music] the detroit auto show off to an exciting start with several major reveals the 2023 chevy tahoe jeep wrangler willie's 4xe and the chrysler 300c all introduced in the last 24 hours sarah grimmer getting an up-close look at the cutting edge features built into some of these vehicles and sarah looks like you're having some fun yes brian we are very excited and a little bit nervous we're behind you right now and right now we are in something called the bad lands sasquatch exactly it is a bronco we have aj our driver and aj oh this is pretty steep what are we doing we're going to drive up and over bronco mountain yeah it's a 33 degree incline wow feel the ford bronco handles it no problem um you know the four broncos are really amazing mix of old-school four-wheel drive technology uh uh what are we seeing here we're at the top what is this we've got this split screen amazing high definition monitor showing us our front tire so you can see that's our left front our right front tire this allows us to perfectly place the vehicle in the environment this is a one of many examples of the technology involved in the ford bronco that really makes it an incredible off-roader right now we're kind of at the top of the auto show we sure are if you look in the monitor now you can see we're high above the rest of the auto show floor um and we can use another cool piece of technology which is trail control and all we're going to do is tell it we want to go one mile an hour down off the hill and it's going to go one mile an hour down off of bronco mountain if you're ready i'm ready are you ready i hope you guys can see on tv just how steep this is people can do that for themselves when they come to the auto show absolutely we'll be out here um all day every day while the auto show is up and running absolutely fantastic and i mean all of this just to showcase the capability of the bronco when you go off-roading and you're that steep it's amazing right i mean you can do just about anything in this vehicle and it used to be that technology slowed us down as off-roaders now it's really enhancing our experience that's fantastic well aj thank you for that experience um brian you guys are lucky that i was on live tv for that because had i not been probably would have been a little bit of squealing in there that's steep sarah that is quite the steep decline we can see it from over here and as we've seen technology is key to solving all kinds of problems and that's why delta dental teamed up with caremobile and the ford motor company fund to find a solution for a lack of dental care access these ford transits are outfitted with the latest in dental technology from x-rays to tele-dentistry these mobile units are pretty self-contained you can get everything from screenings and cleanings the simple things x-rays you can get a full exam you can get an extraction you can get crowns cavities filled they're pretty full service these mobile dentist offices are going door to door in cork town in southwest detroit these are areas of the city that have high need for oral health care services and lower density of practicing dental professionals people have transportation problems and we know that that's the number one reason why people in low-income communities don't access health care and behind the wheel of these mobile offices we gave one mobile dental unit to my community dental centers run by dr debra brown a phenomenal dentist in our region and we gave one to deanna alexander a hygienist who has been doing mobile dental hygiene for several years with tools that just weren't adequate to meet the demands we put two units in the hands of black dental professionals our hope for the minority dental professionals who've received these vans is that they will be able to grow their businesses it was an investment in minority wealth and public health delta dental's partners in this project were care mobile who are mobile dentistry experts and the ford motor company fund i think when we think about the ford fund and delta dental and care mobile it it really came down to just leveraging different expertise so bringing them together with a common cause and access to dental care really enabled us to put this together and i think be more impactful there's just a lot of things that get in the way for some people and we think taking those issues away and providing this door-to-door delivery is going to help a great deal [Music] a major reveal just minutes away ford is keeping its new mustang under wraps after the break an exclusive sneak peek of the seventh generation pony car [Music] it wouldn't be the detroit auto show without a highly anticipated debut and for us outside the front row seat brian i'm here to make you jealous this is the moment i'm in the belly of heart plaza first time before the world sees this we got an exclusive sneak peek for the 2024 ford mustang i've got gian from ford here he's going to tell me real quick what is so special and different about this vehicle seventh generation all-new hometown this is our hometown sports car we're about to reveal it in seconds and we wanted to give you an exclusive let's see it let's take a little peek here let's take a look oh and the signature tail lights right the tri bars i love it now remember the big reveal is happening at 8 15. you can catch it exclusively on ford's youtube page and social media page and of course on channel 7 7 action news at 10 pm and 11 pm we'll have more details about it brian i know you're jealous don't i can see you fuming right now but you know what back to you just a little peek there for us thank you we have had a great time giving you a glimpse into the future tonight thank you for joining us as we celebrate the return of the beloved detroit auto show we hope to see you downtown for all the excitement this weekend have a great night [Music]
2022-09-16 15:02
