I hate potholes a lot, and I am pretty sure you hate them equally if not less. One thing all motorists stand united on is their disgust for potholes and the guys working at “BOSE” hated them so much that they literally went out of their regular routine of making high-quality premium audio systems to create a magic suspension. Suspension so clever that it will practically iron out any kind of imperfections on the road to give passengers a silky smooth ride as they were riding on air.
Also Read: Comparison Between the Suspension Setups of Corolla And Civic
For those of you who don’t know. BOSE secretly started working on this technology in the 80s. It was an electromagnetic suspension code-named Project Sound. This suspension was designed in such a way that it could study as well as predict the road ahead. This way it could adjust the car’s suspension accordingly and rise above the potholes by lifting the required wheels. This is something we have started to see in newer Ford cars as well. This suspension could also help the car jump above the obstacles so that the car doesn’t hit something. There were also other hosts of technologies which helped the car stay perfectly balanced on every kind of terrain and bendy corners making it look very unreal for even today’s standards. Bose showcased all this wizardry by installing this suspension in a Lexus LS400 in 2005. Even the best modern air-suspensions cannot provide that much level of comfort and accuracy as compared to what Bose had made decades ago.
Since it was so formidable it also had a few downsides just like any other technology and those few were enough to make this whole project never make it to the production line. First, it was very complex to make which means repairs would have been a major headache. Second, it was very heavy which also made the host car very slow and sluggish, so it was a pain to drive the car and manoeuvring was significantly affected. And the last reason was the high cost which was, in fact, more than the actual car itself. But good for us, that was many years ago. Now Bose has officially sold this technology to a tech company, and they have finally worked out a way to bring this dream of a suspension to reality. The CEO of ClearMotion told Autocar that a handful of major automakers have shown a keen interest in bringing its new version to market. This smooth-sailing suspension is better known as the “digital chassis system,” and is officially headed for a “low-volume vehicle” as soon as 2019 and on track to hit mass production in 2020. Which is indeed a great news and it’s expected that cars like Rolls Royce, Mercedes Benz and BMW will surely introduce this technology in their top flagship models.
To reach production status, ClearMotion had to ditch the electric motor and installed Bose’s road sensing and control software to its own work on active valve dampers. This is also similar to the newsworthy Multimatic DSSV system present in the Chevrolet Colorado ZR2. It is worth knowing that this idea back in 2005 created a lot of buzz and actually laid down the base of replacing the conventional shock absorbers with linear electric motors which can extend or retract in milliseconds to adjust the ride of the car. You can see the video below to actually appreciate how good the Bose system was in 2005 (in the video posted above).
Now, this second video is the latest video by ClearMotion which showcases the new and improved system in the BMW 5 series. CEO Shak Avadhany describes the system as “proactive” rather than active and the latest version is said to be cost-effective and lightweight; however, the video doesn’t give much information on that whether this suspension will also help the car jump over obstacles or not unlike the original setup showcased in the Lexus LS400. Aside all that it still looks really impressive.
