Posted on September 01, 2010 by Fiona Hilliard

Imagine a journey without a soundtrack. No catchy pop to sing.  No infectious beats to drum on the steering wheel. Not even a news bulletin to argue with. You’d be a whole lot more bored. Not to mention lonely.

The car stereo is one of life’s unsung heroes. It’s there for us when we need to drown out a fight in the back, catch up with the sports results or earwig in on talk show cranks.

One thing’s for sure, we’ve come a long way from the humble cassette deck. So far indeed that German car manufacturer Volkswagen is set to develop a “hybrid” car radio.

A hybrid anything is enough to garner an ooh or an ahh, but get this – Martin Weisner, Head of Driver Information Systems at Volkswagen says the new radio“fulfills the listener demands for tomorrow by fusing the classic car radio with the internet.”

Yes. You read that correctly. The internet will soon be in your car.  Now there’s a novel idea…

If all goes to plan, VW drivers will be able to build their own playlist, which would include music, news and talk radio.  They would then be able to send their information to their Hybrid Radio for listening in the car via an internet interface.  Testing is set to take place soon in Germany, with a VW partnership with German radio station Hit Antenne Niedersachsen.

Did you know?

Drivers have been listening to car radios since the 1930s. One of the world’s first commercially successful radios was produced by Motorola.  In the 1930s, Motorola founders Paul Galvin and Elmer Wavering travelled the length and breadth of the depression-hit United States, selling radios and instructing new suppliers on how to install them properly. With a steady stream of customers on their books, the company introduced a fleet of Motorola service trucks and trained sales engineers.

In a very short space of time, the Motorola model 5T71 had crossed the border into Mexico and was connecting thousands of people with news and music in their ‘second home’ – their car.

Fast forward 80 years…

• 25% of US citizens aged 12 or over have listened to music from an iPod or MP3 player connected to a car stereo. (18th Edison Research Arbitron Internet and Multimedia Study April 2010).

• One in five smart phone users use their phone to listen to music when in their car.  Another 40% say they intend on doing so but haven’t set up their sound system yet. (2010 US Automotive Study JD Power and Associates, July 2010).