Naturally, these systems don’t really work like this. The system installed with OnStar, the real world version of “RoamStar”, can unlock a vehicle remotely, provide route information, and alert an operator in the event of a crash, but they can’t drive the car for you. Not to say such a thing is impossible. In 2007 the BBC show Top Gear fitted out not one but three full-sized sedans with remote controls for what has to be the most bizarre auto races ever driven, right down to the “Swinging Ball of Death”. In March of last year, James Brighton from Cranfield University in the UK rigged a Hummer H3 to run via remote as well, and of course, Mythbusters hack together remote controlled cars for their experiments every other week.

While the level of sophistication for all of these engineers varies,the principle is still the same. The remote only has to replace the driver’s physical manipulation of the car, which is to say, the steering wheel, brakes, and gas pedal. In this 2003 video, a group of guys with apparently too much time on their hands show how they install the mechanism for managing the gas intake from the engine, bypassing the pedals entirely. The Top Gear episode seemed to require a lot of electronics and controllers that took up most of the front seat, forcing the hosts of the show to sit in the rear. The Hummer, easily the most sophisticated of all of them, concealed all of the controlling mechanisms, providing the most KITT-like look, where a driver could sit in the front seat of the car and actually appear to be driving, or sleeping, or anything else, while the remote controller stands atop a high cliff and enjoys what has to be one of the most entertaining toys ever.

It took science another 15 years after those episodes aired, but in 2001 a company called Line-X made the bullet-proof coating very nearly a reality. Paxcon, a heavy duty spray on plastic coating, makes walls extremely blast and bullet resistant (major shout out to Knight Rider Online for the tip).  The U.S. Air Force tested it (PDF) on their typical portable quicky-build military construction and found that it resisted explosions amazingly well. They needed 1,000 pounds of TNT to even damage the coating, and the wall still held.   For a dramatic visual demonstration, check out this Fox news video, which demonstrates the coating against explosions, but then also shows it effectively protecting a cinder block dropped from 52 feet up. Even at that height, the block bounced when it hit the ground.

The coating is extremely elastic, allowing it to stretch and deflect the energy of a bullet or a blast. But why this particular plastic is so effective, no one’s really sure. Even the military had to commission a panel to try and figure it out (I called Line-X, but had to leave a message).

But let’s talk about cars. Plaxcon already sees civilian use as a coating that protects pick-up truck beds. Recently Smash Lab, a Discovery Channel show,  actually tested it with two trucks, one with the coating and another without. Their test truck used a competitor to Plaxcon called Rhino Liner, but it’s more or less the same thing. Then they set off five pounds of “industrial explosives” placed underneath the rear axle of the truck.   The truck-bed without the coating was turned into tiny bits scattered all over the desert test site. The one with the liner deflected the force of the explosion to the front of the truck, destroying the cab, but leaving only a dent on the bed itself.

So it makes some sense that one could coat KITT’s body with the stuff and get a pretty good bullet proof car. Paint over it and it might even possible to generate KITT’s sleek, shiny look. Windows are a problem, though. Line-X is opaque, so probably traditional bullet proof windows are needed.  And then there’s the problem of the underbody. Cars are traditionally fairly open along the bottom, making them easier to repair. But coating every part visible along the bottom of the car would mean cutting through it every time a part had to be checked or fixed. More likely I imagine KITT having a big metal shield along the underbody of the car, which Sarah Graiman or Bonnie would have to remove make a repair. I like to imagine that somewhere off camera,  during fix-it scenes,  a long, KITT shaped piece of shielding leans against the wall. And that sometimes Billy knocks it over.

Show News: There’s been a lot of tidbits about the future of Knight Rider lately. First the show was picked up for a full season. Then the full season was shortened by four episodes. Along the way, NBC decided to drop three characters, eliminating the characters of Alex Torres, Carrie Rivai, and Charles Graiman. Also, future episodes will have a closer resemblance to the original show, in which KITT helps find criminals rather than terrorists. It’s not clear if the show is in danger of cancellation, but signs are not good.

So, does anyone else remember back in 2005, when GM announced that they’d have a self-driving car by 2008? The story was everywhere. It was supposed be a modified Opel  Vectra that would attain speeds of 60 mph and navigate dense traffic. Well, here we are, 2008, no intelligent Vectra in sight. Where’s our self-driving car, GM? Huh?

Not coming any time soon, I suspect. Tim Lee at Ars Technica has a pretty good overview of all there is to know in self-driving cars, but if you want the condensed version, start with the the 2004 DARPA Grand Challenge. DARPA, the advanced research arm of the Department of Defense, asked AI developers to build a car that could travel 131 miles through the dessert with no human input. That first year, no car made it more than eight miles. But in 2005, five cars survived the trek, including the winner out of Standford Unvesity, a modified Volkswagon Touareg named Stanley. In 2007, DARPA issued a new challenge, to navigate city streets, and six cars succeeded in the task.

The winner, a modified Chevy built by engineers from Carnegie Mellon, used cameras, lasers, and radar to build a virtual map of the terrain on the fly. Meanwhile, top level decision making algorithms were deciding strategy, like “stop at the intersection” and “Flip off the cop” while another set of software managed the steering wheel and pedals to actually accomplish those goals in light of the terrain map and other traffic obstacles

But there’s still so much the cars can’t do: identify stop signs, pedestrians, or cone zones, just to name a few, and then there’s the problem of managing multiple obstacles at once. That’s why the guys who are expert in these cars say  we’re probably a couple of decades away from telling KITT to go park himself.

Not to worry, there are a couple of neat things that have become automated in recent years. Remember those Lexus commercials with the car that parks itself? Those were for real. The driver stll has to manage the breaks and gas, but after lingin up the car for the spot, the car takes over the steering wheel and executes the kind of perfect parrallel park most of us couldn’t manage on our driver’s tests. And then there’s adaptive cruise control that detects when the car is approaching an obstacle and slows down. These are baby steps, to be sure, but as the saying goes, you have to walk before you can get the self-driving car to go pick up the pizza.

Ah, the beach episode, a classic of the 1980s crime fighter genre, brought to vivid life in last night’s episode of Knight Rider, when Mike Traceur must infiltrate a band of (what else?) surfing mercenaries to locate a missing secret agent. Fortunately, an episode on the beach creates a perfect opportunity to bust out what has to be one of the coolest, if not always the most useful, things a super car can do, which is go into submarine mode. In last night’s episode a rocket actually blasted KITT off a cliff and into the water. Kitt’s shielding protected Traceur and this week’s sidekick, Zoe Chae, and he made a mid-air transformation to Aqua-KITT. Safe below the waves, Traceur and Chae pondered their next course of action.The episode got me wondering: Could we actually build a submarine car? As you can see from the video clip (skip ahead to 2:35 in the video): yes.

The sQuba, by Swiss auto maker Rinspeed, debuted at the Geneva Motor Show last March. It has a road speed of 75 mph, boat speed of 4 mph, and underwater speed of 2 mph. The car is naturally buoyant, so driving it into the water turns it into a boat with no transformation required. To dive, passengers simply open the door and let the water run in, though they would be wise to don the integrated SCUBA masks and mouthpieces first. Rinspeed’s website said that to keep the car light enough to float, they had to make the water jets out of the current ultimate in futuristic materials, carbon nanotubes. To top it off, the sQuba uses an electric motor, so it’s a zero emissions vehicle. In case you’re wondering, designer Frank Rinderknecht did create it specifically because he loved James Bond’s Lotus Esprit, from The Spy who Loved Me.

On the website, Rinderknecht said he designed an open vehicle so he wouldn’t have to deal with the problem of trapped air. He said the added buoyancy would require an extra two tons of weight to sink the car, which would destroy the land-based performance.

But somehow, an open-topped dive doesn’t satisfy me. I’d need to wear a drysuit to keep my tuxedo safe when I arrived at the formal ball, you know? Maybe my best bet would be the personal submarine from U-Boat Worx, a Dutch company. It has no land-based function at all, but for $570,000, I can buy a personal submersible, motor down to 100 meters below the surface, hang out for six hours watching the fishies, and be home in time for dinner.

ETA: Corrections to pricing and locations of U-Boat Worx