Speeds and Feeds

Last week, I attended a press event in Los Angeles hosted by Hewlett-Packard's workstation business unit. Hewlett-Packard was preparing for this week's announcement of three new Z-series workstation models: the Z400, Z600, and Z800.

HP briefed the reporters and analysts with all the key details of the products (the speeds and feeds, as we say), took us to visit a couple of HP's key customers in the area, and hosted presentations by software partners and more customers.

The workstations are very nice, especially the Z600 and Z800: high-quality dual-processor systems based on Intel's newest Xeon 5500-series processors with specific adaptations to distinguish them from ordinary PCs. Even the Z400, though based on a more basic PC-like design, uses a single Xeon processor and provides two 16-lane PCI Express Gen2 slots.

The customer visits were well chosen: one at BMW Designworks and another at DreamWorks, the movie studio that just released Monsters vs. Aliens.

BMW Designworks actually assisted with the industrial design of the new HP workstations. They're handsome machines, but not exactly pretty--certainly not in the way Apple's Mac Pro is.

More importantly, however, the HP-BMW design is functionally superior. In about the same case size as the Mac Pro, HP's Z800 has room for more RAM, more expansion cards, and more disk drives. BMW also worked handles into the design, and they work better than Apple's.

The difference in RAM is quite substantial. It isn't just about the slots (eight in the Mac Pro, twelve in the Z800)--but even more in the fact that HP supports 16GB dual in-line memory modules (DIMMs), while Apple's machine goes only up to 4GB per slot. That's 192GB for the HP and 32GB for the Mac.

To be fair, HP is merely promising to offer 16GB DIMMs by the end of 2009; you can't get them today. Apple rarely preannounces anything, so it's possible that the Mac Pro will support more RAM by then, but HP's advantage in slot count should keep it on top.

More RAM can often give more performance than a faster CPU, especially in memory-hungry engineering applications. If the software overflows the physical memory and must start using virtual memory, performance can plummet.

These are very nice machines. But they're also expensive. The Z800 starts at less than $2,000 (actually a good bit cheaper than the Mac Pro's entry price), but most buyers will aim higher. In fact, it's no big deal to spend $10,000 or more on a high-end workstation.

Does that seem like a lot of money to spend on a PC for business use at a time when many businesses are struggling? Quite the opposite, I think.

The truth is, the cost of a superior PC is almost trivial, compared with the value it can generate in the hands of a highly skilled designer.

HP tried to make this point in its presentations at the event, but it was very conservative in its figures. First, it assumed that the total cost per employee (including salary, benefits, office space, management overhead, etc.) was just $60 per hour, which is very low. Second, it shouldn't have been using a cost model at all!

The more useful basis for this analysis is revenue per employee, which can easily exceed $250 per hour for the kind of workers who can make effective use of a high-price workstation.

For an employee generating this kind of value, a $10,000 workstation justifies its purchase remarkably quickly. Even if the employee's productivity improves just 10 percent, the payback period is a mere 10 weeks.

It's worth thinking about what it takes to generate a 10 percent improvement in overall productivity. It isn't just a matter of computer performance, but performance helps. These new HP workstations are much faster than the older models, due to the combination of the faster CPUs, faster and more RAM, and a new generation of professional graphics cards from Nvidia and Advanced Micro Devices' ATI.

Performance relates to productivity, in terms of how much time the user spends waiting for the computer, so that's what to look for. Assuming that the software is working as well as it can, and the user's work habits are reasonable, processing delays for engineering visualizations, animation previews, circuit simulations, and similar tasks can really add up.

So it's no surprise to me that there's still a market for pricey dual-processor workstations.

What does surprise me is that there aren't more companies trying to rebuild the market for super high-end workstations.

SGI, in its glory days, used to be able to sell some pretty amazing machines for professional users. I have an SGI Octane workstation that originally sold for over $50,000. That seems like crazy money, but even a $50,000 workstation in the right hands could still pay for itself in less than a year, a reasonable return on investment.

Alas, SGI went bankrupt again this week and then promptly sold itself to Rackable Systems for $25 million plus the assumption of SGI's debts.

I'm sad that SGI is gone, but it wasn't the workstation business that killed the company, and the numbers show that market niche still exists. HP could occupy that niche, if it chose, as could any company that makes four- and eight-processor servers, which share most of the same engineering issues.

Some small companies, such as Boxx Technologies (which I wrote about last summer in "Boxx fills in for a failing SGI") and HPC Systems, make bigger workstations, but both of these vendors' product lines are stuck with AMD Opteron processors at the moment, which are no longer performance-competitive with the new Xeons.

Later this year, new multiprocessor-capable Xeon processors will arrive that could reinvigorate the super-workstation market, and I hope that some of these companies step up to the challenge. I believe that there's some good money to be made there, and the rest of the world economy will benefit at the same time.

As I write this, the temperature in the City of New York hovers around freezing, though it's expected to be warmer and wetter by the time this post gets published. Not the right conditions for high-performance driving, to be sure, but that won't stop enthusiasts from planning for better weather.

Eager drivers in the area have several new options since this time last year. The Monticello Motor Club, for example, is a 4.1-mile racetrack (a road course, of course, not a mere oval track) that opened last July in Monticello, NY. It's just 90 minutes by car from the city, or--as the company's FAQ page points out--25 minutes by helicopter to the trackside heliport.

The mention of helicopter access suggests that the Monticello Motor Club isn't aimed at a mainstream audience. More evidence: the club's Resident membership plan comes with an initiation fee that "begins at $125,000" and annual dues estimated at $7,500. A limited National membership is still $75,000.

The membership application offers three choices for the applicant's net worth starting at $5 million. Whether that's a minimum requirement isn't stated, but if you have to ask...

Then there are extra costs associated with renting cars from the club's selection of exotic cars, professional instruction, spa services, overnight accommodations and fine dining, etc.

Members will be able to use the track for a variety of purposes: restricted touring sessions for track familiarization, open-track sessions with unrestricted speeds but designated passing zones, time-trial sessions, and full racing.

I suspect Monticello may have been betting on the continued success (excess) of Wall Street's hedge-fund managers, but even without those customers, there are still a lot of wealthy people in the New York area. Personally I expect Monticello will do pretty well in spite of the recession.

But it's certainly out of my price range, and I suppose that's true of most of my readers as well.

A somewhat more accessible option is found in Millville, NJ: the New Jersey Motorsports Park (NJMP), which also opened last July adjacent to the airport there.

NJMP comprises two separate racetracks: the 1.9-mile Lightning track and the 2.25-mile Thunderbolt Raceway, which has already hosted professional races. (The Monticello track, by comparison, can be divided into three independent tracks of varying lengths, which is a more flexible arrangement.)

NJMP is also building an oval track, and all snobbery aside, oval tracks can be fun too-- I spent a day at the Richard Petty Driving Experience at the Las Vegas Motor Speedway several years ago, and I sure enjoyed it.

There's also a Driver's Club at NJMP, but its pricing structure is much more reasonable, well within reach for many people who have the sort of car best appreciated on a racetrack: a $15,000 initiation fee plus dues of $2,400 per year. Because NJMP serves many other purposes than just the club, like the professional races I mentioned, the track is open to members fewer days each year than Monticello: 30 vs. "up to 200" depending on membership type. Most people won't do 30 track days in a single year, anyway.

But there are other ways to get on the tracks at NJMP. Like most tracks, NJMP rents itself out to independent driving clubs like the BMW Car Club of America, the Porsche Club of America, and various unaffiliated clubs. (I'm a BMW CCA member myself.)

Driving schools and club-racing events are a great way for people to get track time without heavy initiation fees and annual dues. I've been to many BMW CCA driving schools myself at the tracks in our area--most notably Mazda Raceway Laguna Seca and Infineon Raceway at Sears Point--and I've trained at some of the best tracks in Europe under the tutelage of Driving Concepts and BMW Club Europa, including a three-day school at the awesome Nürburgring in Germany. There's no way to have more fun in your car, and that includes the back seat.

But what if you don't already have your own high-performance car? You can rent one.

There have always been companies willing to rent exotic cars to show-business types and the kind of people who want to roll up to their high-school reunions in a Ferrari. But most of these companies frown on spirited driving, and taking the car on a track is universally prohibited.

Performance Rentals, Inc. (PRI), a new company in Rockland County, NY (just outside the city), is taking a different approach. The company, co-founded by Brian Tiemann, a friend who used to live here in Silicon Valley, is aimed directly at driving enthusiasts. (I've mentioned Brian a couple of times here before.)

PRI has one fleet of cars it rents for use on the street, and is putting together a second set of cars at NJMP for track use.

PRI's street cars are selected for cost-effective driving enjoyment, not style points alone, so they're reasonably affordable: from $460/day for a 550-hp Roush Mustang to $932/day for a Ferrari 355 GTS with the current seasonal discount.

All of these cars feature custom upgrades engineered and installed by PRI. The company's Dodge Viper SRT-10, for example, isn't just the usual 510-hp monster. PRI added a supercharger and Racelogic traction control to give the car 750 horsepower and better controllability than the stock model. Similarly, PRI's Lotus Elise has 310 hp, and its Toyota Supra Turbo has been upgraded to 650 hp.

These cars make PRI an attractive option even for people who already have good cars, because there really aren't very many places to rent cars this good. (PRI says its Viper is "the fastest car available for rent in North America," which seems entirely possible.)

According to PRI's website, the track cars (which will be available during NJMP's 2009 season) will include track-optimized models such as the Porsche 944 and 944 Turbo, a Lotus Exige with a 400-hp turbocharged engine installed by PRI, the Chevrolet Corvette C6 Clubsport, and open-wheel cars such as a Lola Formula Ford and a Lola-Cosworth IRL/Champ car. Some of PRI's street cars may be available at the track, too. Pricing for these cars hasn't been posted, but there will be a substantial discount for members of the NJMP Driver's Club.

PRI will also be running its own track days at NJMP, providing a turnkey experience for people who want a taste of high-performance driving under controlled conditions.

After reading this far, I bet you're not thinking about the weather outside right now.

You're thinking about the sound of tires scrabbling for grip as you clip the apex of a sweeping curve on a winding road or road course.

You're thinking about unwinding the leather-wrapped steering wheel of a finely-engineered sports car while you roll back onto the power, track out to the edge of your lane, and start setting up for the next turn.

You're thinking about how the engine will sound under full throttle while you're climbing up through the gears, and about the sudden pressure behind your eyes when you roll onto the brakes so you can make that next turn.

It may be a few months before you can turn that daydream into a reality, but this is probably a good time to visit some of those websites and make a few phone calls. Maybe you should leave a printout lying around in hopes of finding a gift certificate in your stocking on Christmas morning.

There's a time for dreaming, and a time for action!

The Los Angeles Auto Show wraps up this weekend. I drove down to the Los Angeles Convention Center last week to check out the new BMW M3--which I hope to buy next year--and get a look at all the other new cars debuting there.

There were two clear trends at the show: higher performance and increased environmental sensitivity. The best new vehicles show improvements in both areas.

The new M3, for example, delivers 24% more power (414 hp!) from its new four-liter V8 along with 8% better gas mileage, along with more interior room than its predecessor and many new features. I had the previous version, a 2002 model, and it was a great car.

Now that the new M3 is available as a four-door sedan, I hope I'll be able to get one next year. The M3 will go on sale in the spring, but for me, there's another issue: I want to get the car through BMW's European Delivery program, which I used for my M3 as well as the 1999 540i that I still drive.

I think European Delivery is the best way to get a BMW--or an Audi, Mercedes, Porsche, Saab, Volvo, or other car available through such a program. There's a special reason to get pick up your new BMW in Munich around the beginning of August--the annual driving school at Germany's Nürburgring racetrack. The school is operated by independent European BMW car clubs, with American participation coordinated through the BMW Car Club of America. I attended this school with my M3 in 2002, and it was just incredible-- the most fun I've ever had in a car. BMW, however, doesn't always offer the European Delivery option on recently introduced models, so I'll just keep my fingers crossed.

The new M3 will sell on the strength of that 17% power increase more than the 8% boost in fuel efficiency. For real fuel economy, we have to look beyond traditional gasoline engines. General Motors, eager to regain the position of sales leadership it lost to Toyota earlier this year, was showing off a wide range of hybrid-powered vehicles, more models capable of running on E85 (blended ethanol/gasoline), and two kinds of electric-powered cars.

One of GM's "electric cars" is the Volt concept sedan--which is actually a new type of hybrid. Power is delivered to the wheels exclusively by an electric motor, but the car carries a small internal-combustion engine or hydrogen fuel cell to charge the batteries when needed. This configuration is called a "series hybrid" as opposed to the "parallel hybrid" approach used in Toyota's Prius, where drive power can be provided by an electric motor, a gasoline engine, or both together. The Volt has a much larger battery pack than the Prius, allowing a 40-mile driving range between battery charges, so most commuters can charge the vehicle from AC power overnight and never use the car's engine or fuel cell. GM promises to bring out a production version of Volt by 2010.

GM also showed its Equinox hydrogen fuel-cell car in L.A., a true all-electric design. Although the Equinox design is unlikely to go into production in the next several years due to the lack of hydrogen-fuel infrastructure, GM's Project Driveway will test Equinox in several markets nationwide.

Honda will be testing its own fuel-cell car, the FCX Clarity, in 2008.

Honda also has a plan to solve (or at least address) the infrastructure issue by developing a hydrogen generator that can be used at home. The experimental Home Energy Station reforms natural gas into hydrogen, like the system from UTC Power that I wrote about here back in August.

Honda's system can also be used to provide heat and electricity for the home where it's installed. This approach is probably the best hope for hydrogen-powered vehicles in the next 10 to 20 years, since the infrastructure problem would otherwise be very expensive to solve.

Porsche was showing a hybrid drivetrain under development for the Cayenne SUV, which may be the same design Porsche is rumored to be considering for its forthcoming Panamera sedan--I blogged about this rumor in August.

The hybrid Cayenne on display in L.A.--the same shown in this CNET photo gallery--was the first I've seen in person that combines the gas engine and electric motor into one assembly--the so-called "integrated starter alternator" design I described in that blog post. The result is a hybrid drivetrain barely any larger than a conventional gas engine. (Batteries not included.)

This type of design is more suitable for high-power vehicles since it works with a gasoline or diesel engine of any size, and offers better parts commonality with traditionally powered vehicles than other hybrid approaches. The engine, motor, and battery pack can all be scaled independently to achieve a desired balance of performance, efficiency, and range.

Incidentally, Porsche was also showing a 107-year-old electric car known as the "Voiturette System Lohner-Porsche" developed by Ferdinand Porsche, father of the founder of the Porsche company. This car was the predecessor of a true gas-electric hybrid developed later in 1900 by adding a pair of gasoline engines and electric generators to drive the car's electric wheel-hub motors.

Saving the planet is all very well and good, but we might as well have fun while we can. I was more interested in the 2008 Porsche 911 GT2, which I would have to say is the best sports car available for under $200,000. Aww, heck, I think it's the best sports car available for under $500,000, too. But if you want to go faster than the GT2's nominal 204 mph top end, there were plenty of options for you at the L.A. Auto Show. One company-- the revived Vector Motors-- was even projecting a 300+ mph top speed for its new WX8 supercar, courtesy of a 2,000-hp engine the company has yet to build. At least that was Jalopnik's take; Autoblog only got the company to promise an 1,850-hp, 275-mph version. Personally, I thought the WX8 looked rough and unfinished.

At the other end of the supercar spectrum was Lamborghini's Reventón. Priced at $1.4 million, only 20 of these cars will be built. It's based on the same mechanical platform as the company's LP640--a 640-hp V12 engine and all-wheel drive delivering a 0-100 kph (0-62 mph) time of 3.4 seconds and a top speed over 211 mph--but over a million dollars more expensive than that model. Admittedly, it has a dramatic new design both inside and out, but it seems to me that the Reventón isn't so much a new model of Lamborghini as it is a test of the company's most loyal customers.

Oh, I'd like to give special recognition to Aston Martin, which distributed its press kit for the show in the form of a hardcover book, not the usual folded cardstock portfolios with loose-leaf press releases handed out by other makers. Wow.

The recently concluded K 2007 conference in Düsseldorf, Germany, featured a variety of recent advances in materials science that will change your life. No hyperbole there--just a safe prediction.

I didn't make it to the show, but I've been following the announcements on the Web site of Design News, a trade publication for mechanical engineers. The K Fair is all about plastics...but in truth, the line between plastic and metal is getting pretty blurry these days.

Indeed, companies such as DuPont are now talking about plastics climbing "the metals replacement curve." MetaFuse technology, co-developed by DuPont, Morph Technologies, Integran, and PowerMetal Technologies, combines "nanocrystalline" metals with engineering polymers to create objects with exceptionally high stiffness-to-weight ratios.

Carbon nanotubes promise to replace metal entirely in future automobiles, mobile electronics, and other products. At K 2007, companies such as Bayer and RTP showed carbon nanotube-based composite plastics. Earlier in October, Bayer announced it's building a second production facility for carbon nanotubes. The new facility's capacity is only 30 metric tons per year; Bayer and all of today's suppliers together can barely handle the demand for experimentation and prototyping, but Bayer says its "medium term" plan is to build another facility with the capacity to produce 3,000 tons per year. That's starting to become significant, I think.

Carbon-fiber composites are already strong enough to replace aluminum and steel in certain circumstances, chiefly where cost is secondary to weight or style, as in Toyota's 1/X concept, a carbon-fiber car weighing just 926 pounds, or the 2008 BMW M3--I'm planning to buy one of these next year myself.

But carbon nanotubes are so much stronger than carbon (graphite) fibers that they will likely enable entirely new design philosophies, in the same way that steel revolutionized shipbuilding, and aluminum made commercial aviation practical. We define prehistoric times in terms of materials science--the Stone Age, Bronze Age, and Iron Age--and we're on the cusp of a new age based on practical nanotechnology.

I wrote recently (here) about the One Laptop Per Child project's plan to begin selling the XO laptop in a special one-for-two deal: buyers pay $400 for two, receive one, and get a tax deduction for the other, which is then delivered to a child in a developing nation.

As I said, I think that's a good deal--the XO is likely to be a pretty interesting machine, even though its price is twice its original $100 target, and battery life isn't likely to live up to OLPC's original projections (I covered that issue here and here).

Another low-cost Linux-based laptop that you'll soon be able to buy is the Eee PC from Asus. Pricing for this machine, originally expected to start at $199, is now rumored to begin at $260 when the machine goes on sale later this month, with high-end models coming in around $400.

These prices are reasonably appropriate, given the Eee PC's better performance vs. the XO--a 900-MHz modern Intel processor vs. the older technology of an AMD Geode at 433 MHz. However, the two machines are generally similar in other ways, and the XO will have the advantage for some users of a sunlight-readable display (although it is monochrome only in this mode).

Anyway, I think there's room for both systems in the market, and it'll be interesting to watch them compete for the hearts and minds of educational and open-source software developers.

I intend to get one of each for myself, and of course, I'll post here when I'm able to do that.

[Update 2007-10-02 1330: Reader "hitman247" points out in the comments that the price hikes in the XO and Eee PC don't solely reflect cost increases by the manufacturers; the drop in the value of the US dollar on international markets must play a significant part. As I alluded to in a reply, I've been wondering if I shouldn't accelerate my plan to buy a new BMW next year to replace my 1999-model year 540i. And then, just today, the Wall Street Journal published an article on this very topic (see Google News for the link). So whatever else happens, it may get temporarily more difficult to hit any price point for a new laptop, car, or whatever.]

A big fuel cell from UTC Power was in the news here in Silicon Valley this week when Fujitsu installed it as a backup power source for its local campus. CNET's Michael Kanellos wrote a good story about the event here, and took pictures ("Photos: Fujitsu unveils king-size fuel cell").

Although the fuel cell itself runs on hydrogen, there's no convenient source of pure hydrogen in Silicon Valley, so UTC Power also provided a steam methane reformer that yields hydrogen from natural gas.

One place where pure hydrogen is readily available is NASA's Cape Canaveral facility, and BMW recently completed an eight-week test of its Hydrogen 7 prototype vehicle there. (See the Edmunds review of the car, and a story of the test, with a great photo of the car posed in front of the Endeavour before the recent launch.)

BMW has now handed the keys to one of these cars to actor Will Ferrell (BMW press release), though I suspect BMW will learn less from Ferrell than it did from the NASA testers.

Interestingly, however, the Hydrogen 7 is not a fuel cell car, in spite of stories like this one. BMW just uses its big 6-liter V12 engine with minor modifications allowing it to run on hydrogen as well as gasoline. This is may be the most practical way to run a car on hydrogen, but it's not the wave of the future.

Ford has made a true fuel-cell car, the Fusion 999, and it's considerably faster than the Hydrogen 7. In fact, Ford's unique vehicle, derived from its production Fusion sedan, recently set a speed record for fuel-cell vehicles, reaching 207.297 mph on the Bonneville salt flats. This isn't a car you'll be seeing on the road anytime soon; it has a 770-horsepower electric motor and several huge pressure tanks, it weighs 6,700 pounds, and its range is only just good enough for the high-speed runs on the salt. Richard S. Chang blogged about the event for The New York Times and there's also an interesting video on the Popular Mechanics site.

Ford worked with Ohio State University on the Fusion 999 and on OSU's scratch-built Buckeye Bullet 2, a fuel-cell streamliner that may be able to exceed 350 mph. There's a blog for that project, and it's fascinating reading if you like cars and high technology.

But when can we regular folks have fuel cells of our own? Other than expensive and clumsy solutions like the Trulite and Medis products I blogged about last month (somewhat disparagingly), it won't be soon.

EE Times recently reported that Toshiba, for example, expects it will take several years to bring practical fuel cells to market. "Practical," in this case, means fuel cells based on DMFC (direct methanol fuel cell) technology, which can be powered by inexpensive methanol (also known as wood alcohol).

Samsung has demonstrated a version of its Q35 ultraportable notebook running on a DMFC power supply, achieving 240 hours of operation over the course of a month, but don't get too excited-- the supply is fairly bulky (see some photos and a video on AVING.net) and I'm not entirely convinced that the full month's worth of fuel is stored internally.

It's no coincidence that Samsung chose the Q35 for the demonstration; even the best DMFC fuel cells have much lower power density (watts of output power per cubic inch) than lithium batteries, so they'll have to be very large to support high-performance notebooks.

I'm sure DMFC technology will reach the consumer market soon enough, and then we'll see how it compares with batteries. I suspect lithium batteries will remain the most popular solution for laptops, and I'm sure handheld electronics will stick with batteries unless there's some breakthrough in fuel cells. But it'll be good to have another choice in portable power supplies.

I should write more here about cars. I certainly talk about cars more than enough with friends and coworkers. I've written for the BMW Car Club of America's Roundel Magazine, but somehow my dream job in automotive journalism never materialized...

Good cars are safe, fast, affordable to purchase, economical to operate, reliable, capacious, comfortable, and attractive.

No, of course you can't get all of those characteristics in one car; each conflicts with one or more of the others. Safe and fast, for example... obviously incompatible, right? Well, no. Not at all. The only thing that makes a fast car unsafe is a loose nut behind the wheel. All else being equal, a faster car is safer. A well-designed fast car can accelerate and steer away from trouble and brake to a stop before getting into trouble.

But some cars are unquestionably better at balancing these potential conflicts. Here's how I shop for a car:

• I define my absolute requirements (four seats, headroom, etc.), which define the set of candidates.
• I sort the candidates in order of price.
• I decide my priorities among the features I'm looking for.
• I find the least expensive car that meets my minimum standards for the most important feature or two, then climb the price list. I ignore any car that doesn't improve on the important features, then consider whether the extra price is worth the improvement.

This process usually leaves me with a car that is the best of its type within a fairly wide price range. The third-best car of some type may be significantly cheaper than the best car of that type, but in my experience, it will come with compromises that make it ultimately undesirable.

My last three cars were the 1992 Nissan Maxima SE, the 1998 BMW 540iA Sport, and the 2002 BMW M3. I still have the 540, and I continue to be amazed by how effective it is in so many categories. It's fast-- I've driven it at an indicated 155 mph on the Autobahn in Germany (see the video here; that's a 4.9MB QuickTime movie)-- and nimble enough to beat a lot of genuine sports cars around California racetracks such as Laguna Seca and Sears Point (that is, Mazda Raceway Laguna Seca and Infineon Raceway at Sears Point).

I had planned to buy a new BMW M5 through the company's European Delivery program and join the International Drivers Training Course at the Nürburgring Nordschleife in August (also see Ben Lovejoy's most excellent Nürburgring site here). I did the same thing when I bought the M3, and wow, it was an amazing experience. Alas, I wasn't able to confirm the order for the car before the March deadline for course registration, so I had to let it go. Next year I'll try again.

In future blog entries I'll explain some of the interesting technologies that go into modern automotive design and address controversial questions such as: why engine torque doesn't matter, why unibody construction will give way to new methods as composite materials become more affordable, and why microprocessors will eventually get the final word in driving your car.