万花筒 2011-04-01&04-03 未来汽车

 You know, driving in New York city can be a  heroin experience. Boldly run the streets of Manhattan or the suburbs of Atlanta, new technologies both enhance your car and power it are popping up everywhere. Recently, we got a chance to take some of them for a test drive. 

 

Car technology is no longer just GPS maps and satellite radio, it sets your cars like an office or living room on wheels. And that's not to mention the innovations under the hood¹ as well as in the dash. 

 

These days a dashboard in a car looks a little bit like the dash in a cockpit. I mean...

 

Yes, sure it does. 

 

Where we are going with that is to help all of us, not only drive safely and efficiently², but also to allow us to be better drivers. 

 

Before taking the wheel of Ford³, Alan Mulally was CEO at Boeing. So the plane-car comparison is pretty appropriate. How important is it for Ford to appear as a high tech car company?

 

We are a technology company and since Henry Ford set up Ford, everything we do is about bringing and enabling technology and innovation and making that useful to make people's life better, safer and more efficient. 

 

Ford has push its think and mindful touch ways of interacting with the vehicles, which also means using some of the apps on your smart phone well in the car. 

 

How seamless do you want to be here? Drive out the car you are connected, you get in the car, you are connected. I think that what we want to do is to enhance the drivers and use we are really good at. If you organize the information and you do it in a way that's natural forced, that's why we adopted the consumer electronics approach for the command control. 

 

But the debate continues. 

 

Please say a command. 

 

Whether this technology service is beneficial or detrimental⁴.

 

We are in connected to what...There are connected devices, people have their mobile phones, they also have music applies, they will bring them into their vehicle. So at Ford, we consider ourselves as part of the solution. And part of the solution for us means now you bring usage of those devices in a safe way. 

 

Meanwhile, companies like Q&X are working with car makers⁵ like BMW to tailor the looking feel of the inside of a vehicle. We got a virtual test ride at a recent trade.  

 

The way BMW has implemented⁶ the Q&X implementation⁷, they used (a political code port called MX Jacksy' profile??)and essentially⁸ the invent allows for your entire blackberry emails, text messages, calendar, reminders⁹, tasks to be viewed...

 

Read out to you?

 

As read out to you. 

 

This is essentially what is the, you know, traditional engine display in the car. But what we are trying to show case is that there is a ton of different things you can now do with this. You take that application that's running on the device, you think the car friendly, look and feel on the actual display service.

 

So it is easy to use without line and stretch. 

 

Exactly. 

 

And then on electric vehicles coming on to the road. Well, some are mostly electric. The Chevy Volt¹⁰ is neither a hybrid¹¹ nor a truly solely¹² electric vehicle. And that's because there is also a gas engine. So Chevy is calling it an extended range electric vehicle and that's exactly what it does. Basically, the electric mode will work for about 50 miles or so and after that point the gas engine is designed to kick in and give you a lot more miles. Like every other electric vehicle, it's quiet, it's very smooth ride, it's actually a pretty fun ride. Now the readouts on the displays here there is some tacky stuff going on, you can see how much of the battery is left; you can see whether you are an efficient driver; if you're pushing too much in the accelerator or if you are using up too much of the battery. Now all of these are not gonna come cheap by the way, the manufacturer suggested retail¹³ price for the Chevy Volt is about $41,000, which is definitely more than some of the electric vehicles out there on the market. You do get about $7000 federal tax credit because of the clean energy component¹⁴ of this car. But still left about $33,000 since the investment for people and you have to hope you get it back while have seen that spending as much on gas. Every type of clean energy vehicle you can imagine is coming out these days. It's a real trend for cars. Going forward, we'll have to see what lies down the road.

1 hood   

n.头巾，兜帽，覆盖；v.罩上，以头巾覆盖

参考例句：

• She is wearing a red cloak with a hood.她穿着一件红色带兜帽的披风。
• The car hood was dented in.汽车的发动机罩已凹了进去。

2 efficiently   

adv.高效率地，有能力地

参考例句：

• The worker oils the machine to operate it more efficiently.工人给机器上油以使机器运转更有效。
• Local authorities have to learn to allocate resources efficiently.地方政府必须学会有效地分配资源。

3 Ford   

n.浅滩，水浅可涉处；v.涉水，涉过

参考例句：

• They were guarding the bridge,so we forded the river.他们驻守在那座桥上，所以我们只能涉水过河。
• If you decide to ford a stream,be extremely careful.如果已决定要涉过小溪，必须极度小心。

4 detrimental   

adj.损害的，造成伤害的

参考例句：

• We know that heat treatment is detrimental to milk.我们知道加热对牛奶是不利的。
• He wouldn't accept that smoking was detrimental to health.他不相信吸烟有害健康。

5 makers   

n.制造者，制造商（maker的复数形式）

参考例句：

• The makers of the product assured us that there had been no sacrifice of quality. 这一产品的制造商向我们保证说他们没有牺牲质量。
• The makers are about to launch out a new product. 制造商们马上要生产一种新产品。 来自《简明英汉词典》

6 implemented   

v.实现( implement的过去式和过去分词 )；执行；贯彻；使生效

参考例句：

• This agreement, if not implemented, is a mere scrap of paper. 这个协定如不执行只不过是一纸空文。 来自《现代汉英综合大词典》
• The economy is in danger of collapse unless far-reaching reforms are implemented. 如果不实施影响深远的改革，经济就面临崩溃的危险。 来自辞典例句

7 implementation   

n.实施，贯彻

参考例句：

• Implementation of the program is now well underway.这一项目的实施现在行情看好。

8 essentially   

adv.本质上，实质上，基本上

参考例句：

• Really great men are essentially modest.真正的伟人大都很谦虚。
• She is an essentially selfish person.她本质上是个自私自利的人。

9 reminders   

n.令人回忆起…的东西( reminder的名词复数 )；提醒…的东西；（告知该做某事的）通知单；提示信

参考例句：

• The film evokes chilling reminders of the war. 这部电影使人们回忆起战争的可怕场景。
• The strike has delayed the mailing of tax reminders. 罢工耽搁了催税单的投寄。

10 volt   

n.伏特，伏

参考例句：

• You may use 100 and 110 volt appliances in your room.您可以在房间使用100及110伏特的电器。
• The common service voltage of electric power in our country is 220/380 volt.我国普通供电电压为220/380伏。

11 hybrid   

n.(动，植）杂种，混合物

参考例句：

• That is a hybrid perpetual rose.那是一株杂交的四季开花的蔷薇。
• The hybrid was tall,handsome,and intelligent.那混血儿高大、英俊、又聪明。

12 solely   

adv.仅仅，唯一地

参考例句：

• Success should not be measured solely by educational achievement.成功与否不应只用学业成绩来衡量。
• The town depends almost solely on the tourist trade.这座城市几乎完全靠旅游业维持。

13 retail   

v./n.零售；adv.以零售价格

参考例句：

• In this shop they retail tobacco and sweets.这家铺子零售香烟和糖果。
• These shoes retail at 10 yuan a pair.这些鞋子零卖10元一双。

14 component   

n.组成部分，成分，元件；adj.组成的，合成的

参考例句：

• Each component is carefully checked before assembly.每个零件在装配前都经过仔细检查。
• Blade and handle are the component parts of a knife.刀身和刀柄是一把刀的组成部分。