The Car that Could

Maybe your dream car has an 11-speaker Bose entertainment system in the cabin. Well, the next performance car of your dreams could have a Bose suspension system under the sheet metal. Seriously. The Framingham, Massachusetts, company best known for audio systems and speakers, has developed a revolutionary computer-controlled suspension system that replaces the traditional shocks and springs with electronic actuators. The result is a ride that's absolutely flat over the bumpiest of roads and around sharp corners. In theory, a car could even bank into turns, as do planes and high-speed trains.

"This is the first time a suspension system is the same for a sports car and for a luxury car," says company founder, Amar Bose, whose interest in better car suspensions dates to a 1957 Pontiac with a primitive air suspension and a 1967 Citroen with a constantly leaky hydraulic suspension. In 1980, Bose embarked on a five-year study of alternatives and decided electromagnetic suspensions would be markedly superior once technology could catch up with his mathematical model that called for better linear electromagnetic motors, power amplifiers, control algorithms, and processor power. He set a small team of engineers to work on improving the first three in the mid-1980s and waited for Moore's Law to help on the fourth. Bose jokes that the effort was code-named Project Sound because even at a privately held company bearing his name, a 24-year investment made the accountants nervous.

The Car that Could The suspension module is an oval tube slightly thicker than the spring that coils around a shock absorber in current systems, which it replaces. Processing power is supplied by a 750-MHz Intel Pentium III running at a quarter of its capability in the test vehicle, a 1994 Lexus LS400. When the car senses a bump, the linear motor actuator retracts or extends the wheel and tire almost instantly—many times faster than a standard suspension. The action is so quick that occupants sense no motion at all if the bump is less than the actuator's travel of up to 20 cm (about 8 inches).

The system can reduce body roll in a turn or even allow a car to bank into a turn, but research showed that passengers find the result discomforting because they expect some roll. (Studies done outside Bose found that banking makes drivers try to defy the laws of physics when turning, producing dangerous results.) While the unit draws a good deal of power—one-third as much as a car air conditioner, which is not minor—it has the ability to regenerate and store energy created when a bump drives the wheel up. That energy is wasted in conventional shock absorbers. Bose says there's a limp-home mode in case of electrical failure, and the car responds like a softly damped luxury car.

Bose expects his company to choose one automaker, "a car company who has an absolute dedication to performance," within a year. Typical lead times for automakers would result in the Bose Suspension System, as it's called, being available late in the decade. Likely suspects are the luxury/sports makers that have reasonable market share and cars that can stand the weight—Acura, Audi, BMW, Cadillac, Infiniti, Lexus, and Mercedes. Customers could order the cars with standard or electromagnet suspensions. Vehicles without the Bose Suspension System would be the same, otherwise.

The company refused to project the cost, but cars with current computer-aided hydraulic or mechanical body roll control include a $2,000 upcharge, which would be incorporated by the Bose system. Bose says it believes its system would add 200 pounds, or about 5 percent, to the weight of a luxury/sports sedan.