2024 Top 10 Coolest New Auto Tech2024 Top 10 Coolest New Auto Tech

Over the course of the year, Design News has the opportunity to experience an impressive array of innovations. Some of these involve amazing new technologies while others are simply thoughtful executions of existing products. In one case on this year’s list of our top 10 favorite new automotive technologies, it is the revival of a once-popular feature that merits attention.

Here are some of the coolest new things we saw in cars in 2024:

Hyundai Santa Fe UV phone sanitizer

Health news is full of reminders that our phones are germy terrors. Hyundai wants to help, so the 2024 Santa Fe offers a sanitizing box where drivers can stow their phones, keys, or other small germ-ridden objects and fry the microbes with a blast of ultraviolet radiation. The cleaning cycle lasts ten minutes, so it is easy to disinfect your phone while you drive.

Putting your phone in the glove compartment while you drive is a good reminder to keep it out of your hands to prevent you from running over pedestrians while texting “LOL” to your best friend.

Audi illuminated seat belt buckles

It isn’t hard to find the seatbelt latch to buckle the harness when you get into the car during the day. But at night they can sometimes be a challenge to locate. Audi has solved this problem by illuminating the latches to make them easy to find.

Related:2024 Hyundai Santa Fe Maximizes Cabin Space with Blocky Styling

Sure, the red release buttons are easy to see in daylight, but at night these seatbelt latches are illuminated to make them equally easy to spot. AUDI

In the past, this would have been impractical because of the fragility of incandescent bulb filaments and the heat they produce. Thanks to the arrival of LED lighting, Audi was able to make it easier to buckle up at night.

Toyota Tacoma JBL Flex speaker

It seems like respected home stereo speaker manufacturer JBL has become the go-to for modern Bluetooth speakers. Everyone appreciates the ability to carry a compact, lightweight device that streams amazing sound from our phones for hours on end.

Recognizing this, Toyota has incorporated a JBL Flex mobile Bluetooth speaker into the center dashboard as part of the stereo system in the Tacoma pickup. It provides center channel sound while listening to the Tacoma’s stereo system while it is latched into its dock.

The Tacoma's JBL Flex Bluetooth speaker pops right out of the dashboard for use on the go. TOYOTA

But arrive at your destination, and a button press releases the Flex for you to carry along with you as a mobile speaker. It is fully charged because it has been charging while it was docked in the truck. This is a neat trick that should be more widely emulated by any manufacturer who thinks that its customers have an active lifestyle.

Volkswagen ID.Buzz retractable hitch receiver

Hitch receivers are hugely practical options on vehicles, even if you don’t expect to tow very frequently. In addition to pulling the occasional U-Haul if you don’t own a camper, boat, or motorcycle that you tow, these standardized 2-inch receivers also accommodate helpful devices such as bike racks or platforms for additional luggage capacity. They can even hold a grille for tailgate parties.

Related:2024 Toyota Tacoma TRD Pro Brings New Tech

The ID.BUZZ's hitch receiver in the deployed position. VOLKSWAGEN

When mounted on high-riding pickups and SUVs, there’s plenty of space beneath for the receiver. But on a more normal-height vehicle like the Volkswagen ID.BUZZ minivan, there isn’t as much ground clearance for the receiver. We love VW’s solution: a stowable receiver that folds up and out of the way when it isn’t needed.

Tug on the red handle, and the receiver swings 90 degrees and locks into position, going from invisible to practical in just a few seconds. Ingenious!

Toyota Land Cruiser flipper window

Way back in the olden times, during the 1990s dawn of the SUV age, carmakers often offered what was then referred to as a “flipper window” on SUV hatches. Consumers didn’t like having their groceries fall out onto the ground when the top-hinged hatch opened. The solution was to keep the hatch closed and only open the window.

Just squeeze the release button beneath the rear wiper pivot and the Land Cruiser's rear glass flips upward for access to the rear cargo area. TOYOTA

For some reason, this practical solution fell out of favor. It adds cost and manufacturing complexity to incorporate a hinged window into the hatch door and to design a rear-window wiper system that works with a window that opens, so those factors must have worked against it. In any case, Toyota has come to its senses and revived the rear hatch flipper window in the Land Cruiser and we welcome its return.

Related:New Tech, Longer Range, and Lower Prices Keep Rivian in the Game

Lincoln Nautilus panoramic display

New cars have been overrun by video display screens. The obvious end game is a display that stretches across the entirety of the dashboard. That end game has arrived with the new Lincoln Nautilus, whose opulent display makes this seem like a good development rather than technical overreach.

The Nautilus settles the question of how far a dashboard display can extend, by going all the way across. LINCOLN

The 48-inch panoramic display spans the entire dash and can be personalized to meet driver needs, raising the preferred information of their choice to help keep their eyes up and on the road.   Drivers can use apps and services from Google and Amazon through the built-in system or switch to Apple CarPlay or Android Auto to mirror their smartphone apps on the display.

Toyota Sienna Advanced Rear Seat Reminder

Too many children die every year because they’ve been left inside cars that bake in the sun. Carmakers are trying different solutions to warn drivers that there is a child in the car when they park, but often these are dumb systems that drivers get in the habit of ignoring because of the frequent false alarms.
The 2025 Toyota Sienna minivan employs 60-GHz millimeter radar built into the headliner to watch the rear seat so that the car can provide smart alerts when a small person is detected in the back seat. Such technologies, if not this specific radar system, seem likely to be mandatory soon.

The Sienna's Advanced Rear Seat Reminder radar hides behind the headliner on the ceiling. TOYOTA

If the Advanced Rear Seat Reminder system senses movement in the scanned area after the vehicle is shifted into park and the ignition is off, the driver’s door has been opened then closed, and the vehicle has been locked, the initial warning will flash the hazard lights and sound the door lock chime.  After 90 seconds, if movement is still detected by the sensor and a door has not been opened, the Advanced Rear Seat Reminder will sound the horn.  Finally, after an additional two minutes has elapsed, the system will make an automated phone call from Toyota Safety.

Rivian Zonal Architecture

We heard for a while that the solution to the miles of circuitry in new cars and the heaps of processors would be a shift to zonal architectures that let localized processors and reduced wiring handle system in each zone of the vehicle.

Rivian's zonal architecture divides the vehicle's circuitry according to its location. RIVIAN

With its refresh of the R1T and R1S, Rivian has introduced a zonal architecture and was able to describe the benefits, illustrating the appeal of this approach. Volkswagen’s Scout Motors agrees, as they’ll use Rivian’s zonal architecture in the new Scout vehicles arriving in 2026.

The new architecture eliminated 1.6 miles of copper wiring weighing 44 lbs. and slashed the number of processors from 17 to seven. The reduced number of connections also promises to bolster durability thanks to the reduction in potential points of failure.

Audi Smart Panoramic glass roof with transparency control

Panoramic glass roofs aren’t new, but Audi has introduced a panoramic roof that uses polymer-dispersed liquid crystal (PDLC) technology to change from transparent to opaque at the press of a button.

Electrically controllable glass components contain two PDLC film elements sandwiching liquid crystals. Their no-voltage state is opaque and when voltage is applied the crystals align, making the roof transparent. Audi lets customers operate the opaque segments like a “digital curtain” allowing various levels of coverage.