9 Things Your Car Will Have By 2020

(Jessica Anderson of Kiplinger) The 1980s classic film, Back to the Future, depicts a future with flying cars and "skyways." The year: 2015. We don't have a time machine, but we can guarantee that in four years we'll still be using earthbound roads. And we peered a little further into the future of automotive technology -- to 2020, to be exact -- to see what features are likely to be big sellers. Safety will always be a top concern, and car companies will continue to develop technology to help reduce accidents. Government mandates to increase fuel economy and reduce pollution will lead to smaller, less thirsty vehicles, with a high percentage of electrified vehicles on the road. And you'll likely be able to tell your car to check your Facebook page.

1. Warnings Galore
Your car won't drive itself, but its technology will help make you a safer driver. For example, current collision-mitigation systems use radar to sense when you're getting too close, going too fast, and give you a visual and auditory warning. They then either "precharge" your brakes to give them more power when you step on the brake pedal or -- like some systems from Hyundai, Lexus and Mercedes -- tighten your seat belts and automatically apply the brakes. Prices run $1,200 to $1,500 now, but the systems may be included in more-expensive option packages.

2. Eyes All Around

3. Pedestrian Detection and Night Vision
A pedestrian-detection system, such as the one on Volvo's S60, brings the car to a full stop if it detects a pedestrian in your path; if you're going faster than 22 miles per hour, the vehicle won't be able to stop fast enough to avoid hitting the pedestrian. (The automakers City Safety feature works the same way for a car that stops short in front of you.) Night-vision systems, like the ones BMW and Mercedes are offering on their top-of-the-line vehicles, detect infrared light or amplify available light to help you see a person who wanders into your intended path but is out of range of your headlights. Right now, both systems are pricey options. Volvo's Technology Package, which includes pedestrian detection, lane-departure warning and collision warning with full automatic braking, is $2,100. BMW's Night Vision with Pedestrian Detection is $2,600. But in the future, these systems will be standard on high-end vehicles and available on more-mainstream vehicles for a grand or less.

4. Easy Cruising
Adaptive cruise control uses radar to help you keep a safe distance from the car in front as you cruise at highway speeds so that you don't have to constantly hit the brakes and reset your cruising speed. Currently, it's optional on BMW's cars ($2,400) and on Audi's A4 ($2,100); it's available on mainstream cars like the Ford Taurus ($1,200), too. By 2020, it will be a nearly ubiquitous option and a standard feature on all top-of-the-line vehicles. It will likely evolve to work at low speeds and help you avoid collisions in stop-and-go traffic, much like Volvo's City Safe feature.

5. Vehicle-to-Vehicle Communications
Wouldn't it be nice if cars could talk to each other in order to avoid accidents? In the future, they will. Ford is currently engineering an intelligent vehicle system that uses advanced Wi-Fi technology; it transmits your vehicle's location and recognizes other vehicles surrounding you. The system will warn you of an oncoming car when you'd like to pass a vehicle on a country road, or alert you to a car about to blow through a red light, or tell you when a vehicle several cars ahead has stopped short. This technology will be available as an option by the end of the decade, although it'll be much longer before it's standard. Because the concept is so new, there's no way to estimate what it will cost.

6. A Better Way to Connect
Finding your way, finding your music and finding your friends will continue to get easier. Bluetooth will be standard at every level, and pairing your phone with the hands-free system will be much less complicated. A voice prompt will be all you'll need to make a call or change the song. Likewise, widely standard in-car communications systems, such as Ford's Sync, will read incoming text messages. If you have a built-in navigation system, you'll easily be able to speak destinations or ask the system to find a stop along your route. More systems will work like Ford's MyFord Touch (available now on the Edge and Focus models for about $1,000).

7. App Central
In-car Wi-Fi is available now from General Motors for a few hundred dollars, plus a monthly subscription fee, and widespread rollout is imminent. That means surfing the Web on the way to work will probably be par for the course by 2020. And despite government concerns about distracted driving, it's a good bet that apps for Pandora radio, Facebook and Twitter will soon be standard fare in your infotainment system. The systems will rely on voice commands. GM has already started testing audio Facebook updates through its revamped OnStar communications link. Toyota's Entune system, previewed at this year's Consumer Electronics Show, also responds to voice commands and can use the driver's smart phone to bring apps such as OpenTable, MovieTickets.com and Bing to the dashboard.

8. Fuel-Sipper Tech

9. Advanced Engines
Hybrids will become a much bigger percentage of cars sold, as will "mild" hybrids, such as Buick's LaCrosse with eAssist, which uses a small lithium ion battery to power a stop/start system and regenerative brakes. The remaining gas-engine models will rely on turbocharging and direct-injection. Engine size will be a factor, as well. Ford's newest EcoBoost engine is a turbocharged 1.0-liter three-cylinder with direct injection that will offer up to 20% better fuel economy than a traditional four-cylinder with the same amount of power. (No pricing is available yet for the three-cylinder engine, but on the 2011 Ford Flex, the six-cylinder EcoBoost engine costs $3,000 more than the regular one.) You'll also see transmissions with more gears, which will help improve fuel economy by up to 6%. Eight speeds is the new six.