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John Hardwick

Constant
Change

Eddie Alterman in a 2014 Ferrari LaFerrari, but his favorite car is the Porsche 911.

We check in on the
state of the auto
industry with the
editor of Car & Driver.

Harry Kirsbaum | Contributing Writer

C

onvulsive changes.”
That’s the term Eddie Alterman
used to describe the state of the
car industry in the five years since the
Jewish News last checked in with him.
And it’s the reason that he, as edi-
tor of Ann Arbor-based Car and Driver
magazine, has remained so busy keeping
up with the constant stream of trends,
some on the retail/marketing side, some
on the car itself and most enabled with
high-speed data.
“There are more cars than ever, more
trims and models and niches, and more
styles than ever, and at the same time

there are more transportation options
than ever,” he said. “Car sharing, Uber,
Lyft, car-to-car communication, vehicle
infrastructure information — a lot of
confusion in the marketplace. What it
means for the magazine is that we have
to work even harder to help people navi-
gate this landscape and help alleviate
this confusion.”
Alterman became editor of Car and
Driver in 2009 and witnessed the tech-
nological explosion of the car industry
from a front-row seat.
“Advances in automotive technology
happened at the hardware level,” he
said. “You get more efficient transmis-
sions, more efficient drive systems and

engines.”
It’s all based on a drive toward the fed-
eral fuel-efficiency regulations ordering
54.5 miles to the gallon by 2025.
And there are huge changes at the
software level as well, he said, citing
semi-autonomous features like lane
keeping and smart cruise controls.
“The cars have cameras in them, but
the software makes sense of it and tells
the car to brake and stay within the lane
and tells the car to give you a buzz in
the steering wheel if you stray out of
your lane, so there’s a real kind of fusion
going on between hardware and software
within the car.”
More people are shopping for cars
continued on page 38

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