Finding yourself lost on a strange road or stuck with nothing to drive to but your wife's favourite CD could be problems of the past if the latest prototypes from Mercedes reach the market.
One year after Ken Enders, vice-president of Mercedes-Benz USA, described the car of the future as a personal networking device, the company has unveiled the road map for its next generation Internet auto-access.
At Comdex this week, DaimlerChrysler unveiled its InfoFuelling system, which will enable drivers to buy music as they hear it on the radio and beam data files to a home network as they drive.
While Comdex attendees relished the chance to climb into the latest models and burn rubber around a carpark opposite the Las Vegas Convention Centre, the real message was in the dashboard.
The DriveBy InfoFuelling technology uses a standard called 802.11a r/a (road access) to transmit high-bandwidth Internet data to vehicles travelling at speeds exceeding 96 kilometres per hour.
The system relies on a series of tranceivers based along the roadside, which receive instructions from passing cars and download data to the cars as they drive by.
Using the system, a driver can hear a song on the radio, select it with a button mounted on the steering wheel and automatically download it at the next InfoFuelling station.