New Wheels for Grandma

This article focuses on how engineers are adding enabling technologies that make cars easier and safer for an aging population to drive. By 2011, the baby boom generation will begin to turn 65, and by 2030, one in five people will be age 65 or older, according to US Census Bureau projections. A large percentage of the older Americans are expected to still be tooling down the highways. Ford Motor Co. of Dearborn, Michigan, Detroit-based General Motors, and automotive interior supplier Lear Corp. of Southfield, Michigan, have all undertaken studies to help them understand the needs and wants of older drivers in an effort to create vehicles that are ergonomically attuned to them. Ford has taken a different approach to defining the needs of the aging baby boomers. Like Lear, it conducted consumer research, but Ford also used a unique tool to help young engineers know what it feels like to be a 65-year-old trying to operate a car. The concept vehicle is using information gleaned from Lear’s Masters Study to determine the best colors, lighting levels, and rate of change in lighting for instruments and warning sensor displays.