Technology

Cruisin' Along

Oct. 3, 2014

With the introduction of electronic engines about 25 years ago, foot-off cruise control became much easier. I know there were drivers who found ways to "fix" the position of the throttle pedal with sticks or bricks to achieve some level of cruise control before that. Through the years of software changes in the engine controls, cruise control gained new features, such as fuel economy incentives, opportunities for passing at higher speed, and limits based on the road speed governor setting. We have cruise control, adaptive cruise control, adaptive cruise control with collision mitigation braking, cooperative cruise control and more.

The latest changes came in the last five years, with cruise control that takes advantage of GPS and knows when hills are coming. The first reference to this was called "predictive cruise control." With the big IAA Commercial Vehicle show just ending, it seems everyone is getting into offering something related to cruise control. Variations of this theme of using GPS to enhance cruise control are now called:

Predictive Cruise Control (Original Term)

Predictive Powertrain Control (Daimler)

eHorizon, Static eHorizon, Connected eHorizon and Dynamic eHorizon (Continental)

OptiPace Predictive Economic Cruise Control (WABCO)

Predictive Cruise Control with Predictive Shifting (DAF)

Eco.Logic Motion (Bosch)

PreVision GPS and TopoDyn Life (ZF)

Efficient Cruise (MAN)

I-See (Volvo)

Eco Cruise Control (Renault)

Even for someone steeped in this technology, it's a dizzying array of terms.

About the Author

Paul Menig | CEO

Paul Menig is the leader of Tech-I-M LLC, a consulting company focused on helping companies succeed by leveraging technology in their products and processes. After successfully introducing many high tech products in the corporate worlds of General Electric, Eaton and Daimler, he is now focused on savvy technology creating powerful results in companies of all sizes.

Paul also provides free counseling to a wide range of businesses as part of the non-profit organization SCORE that is associated with the Small Business Administration (SBA). Paul is a graduate of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in electrical engineering and has participated in many training programs in quality, strategic planning, finance and technical areas.