Talking to your car

So the search for the next generation of vehicle continues. We have been playing the test driver for the past few weeks now to secure the right automotive contraption for the spouse whose prior conveyance has aged - frankly its boring to sit on the same seat for too many years and do the same commute. Need to change something...its easier these days to change the seat rather than find a new job. So off we go checking out a range of products from domestically owned (car company) and produced to foreign owned and produced and everything in between. In the flat world economy its hard to ultimately know who actually made the car and what sort of engineering went into it and what sort of jobs it created and who actually made the profit. I mean for all I know the Titanium for the catalytic converter actually came from Rwanda while the seat fabric was from a cotton mill in Gujarat or the leather trim was from a cow butchered in Australia. Its mind numbing I tell you. And the Italians made the profit (they could use it given their state of the state). Add to that the technology package (that is what its called in automotive parlance these days - everything is a package) which short of driving itself to work does a lot of things like talk with you or even talk back in some extreme cases. Now you would not even need to take your spouse on that long road trip to get rebuked.