Hasta La Gadget!

GPS navigation units started with 3.5-inch screens, grew to 4.1-, 4.5-, and 5-inches, and show no signs of stopping. Magellan has just announced the RoadMate 1700, with a 7-inch display.

Now, a 7-inch display isn’t for everyone. It’s huge. Put it in a SmartCar and you won’t be able to see the road. But in an RV or a commercial truck it’s great. It’s also a boon for people with vision problems that make it hard to read small type. The RoadMate 1700 doesn’t put more information on the screen, it just makes the existing information bigger.

Besides standard navigation for all 50 states, Canada, and Puerto Rico, you’ll get AAA TourBook information, Magellan’s OneTouch interface, and lane assistance. The RoadMate 1700 is on sale now for $299.

Seeking to reduce driver distraction, BMW’s 2010 models get simpler voice input for navigation and music entry. Developed by Nuance, the One-Shot Destination Entry feature lets the driver or passenger say the destination in a single phrase such as “1500 Pennsylvania Avenue, Washington, DC” rather than be prompted for the state then city then street then street number. The Music Search feature lets drivers search for music with voice commands, as with Ford’s pioneering Sync system, which also uses Nuance voice input technology.

The features are on 2010 BMWs with the Harman Becker entertainment and navigation system and are offered both in the U.S. and Europe. BMW has offered voice input for years but of the traditional multi-step approach. It can be used jointly with BMW’s iDrive controller system, meaning you can switch between voice entry and iDrive input. Typically if a car has both, you have to start and finish with one or the other but not both. The 2010 Mercedes-Benz S-Class gets One Shot Destination Entry also, but only on European models. According to Olaf Kappler, a Becker brand manager, “One-Shot Speech is a key part of our mission to bring a high-end, innovative user interface into the broader navigation consumer market that enables our customers to get to where they are going faster, and without the inherent dangers of manual entry while on the road.” Research suggests simpler input reduces the risk of driver distraction but never eliminates it completely, just as using a handsfree headset for phone calls in the car reduces the risks inherent with one-handed driving but doesn’t eliminate all distractions.

Bob Dylan, the musical voice of his generation, could the voice of your next car navigation system or portable navigation device (PND). He said so himself this week on his BBC satellite radio program, that he’s negotiating with two automakers to be the voice behind their navigation systems. Take that, James Earl Jones. Dylan certainly has enough lyrics to his credit that, with several decades hindsight, foreshadowed the GPS revolution: “how many roads,” “no direction home,” and “there must be someway out of here.” (Be sure to post any we forgot below in feedback.)

Worried that Bob Dylan’s sellling out? Not to worry. If it happened, it was long before the navigation opportunity. As the Washington Post noted, he’s done commercial work for Cadillac, Pepsi, and Victoria’s Secret. In a 2007 commercial for the Cadillac Escalade, Dylan asked, “What’s life without the occasional detour?”

The EcoBoost engine in the Ford Flex crossover shows why V8 engines aren’t necessary for power. Ford grafts two turbochargers onto a 262-hp V6 engine and – presto! – you’ve got a 355-hp, seven-passenger vehicle that gets the same fuel economy as the base-engine Ford Flex. You’re talking less than half the fuel economy of a green car such as the Toyota Prius. But we also found the Flex big enough to carry all the belongings of a college student, four passengers in all, in extreme comfort. Three tons of car, passengers, and gear traveling more at less at the posted speed limit managed just a hair under the rated 22 mpg in mostly highway driving.

I hit the brake pedal just once on a 200-mile stretch of Interstate highway coming back from the Adirondacks to the New York City area. It wasn’t while driving in the middle of the night but on a busy Sunday afternoon, when traffic can be bumper to bumper the last 50 miles. The car was under the guidance of radar-based stop-and-go active cruise control (ACC), also known as adaptive cruise control, autonomous cruise control, or intelligent cruise control. ACC has been around for a decade and recently some automakers have added a second radar transponder that covers near distances (sort of like radar reading glasses). Instead of cutting out around 20 mph, this takes you down to a full stop and back up to speed. Stop and go ACC is effective, but it’s not cheap: It added $2,400 list to the price of the BMW 750Li I was driving, which in turn helped hike the price over $100,000. But it’s effortless: The only driver involvement, other than steering (still highly recommended), is to lightly tap the throttle when you’re stopped and ready to start up again.