There are some 200 million cars in North America. We spend 500 million passenger hours each week inside cars, according to investment firm Goldman Sachs. Delphi Automotive research found that more than a third of PDA owners use PDAs while driving. And Jupiter Research found that almost half of all motorists would like access to e-mail while on the road. Automakers are both enamored of the electronic in-car future and nervous about it.
Silicon Valley loves it, because it's one more outlet for hardware and services.
Already, a handful of cities have attempted to ban cell phone usage by drivers, and service provider Verizon has broken ranks with the cellular industry to support a ban on hand-helds. There are conflicting studies on the safety of in-car electronics. The best-known, from The New England Journal of Medicine in 1997, said cell phone users have the same chance of accidents as drunken drivers. DOT also found that tuning a radio can be as hazardous as dialing your cell phone, and it's unlikely that car radios will be banned. An open-standards electronics bay would benefit users, but automakers would likely demur, worried about being held responsible for glitches the devices cause and wanting to maximize revenue.