When you get into your car these days, you slide a big piece of your life in suspension. That life is your mobile one, and what’s in your pocket is probably an iPhone or an Android. You probably stare at it in intersections, elevators, meetings, and even in bed. When your date excuses herself for the bathroom, she’s probably engaged in her mobile phone while you do the same at the table. And when you see her approaching, in goes your phone, and you both smile. There’s a sigh of relief – not because she came back, not because your drinks were refilled, or because your salad came, but because you’ve both checked in with your mobile lives. There’s a momentary high. You’re all caught up again. As the next hour goes by, your anxiety builds again. Your phone receives 15 notifications before your date finishes telling you about her days as a roller derby girl.
More now than ever, we live moment-by-moment. When not too long ago, we lived day-by-day. The news came daily, in print. If you wanted to rent a movie or buy a book, you had a limited window of opportunity to get this done. If you weren’t at your office desk or at home, you were 100% unreachable. Now, in our mobile lives, we live with a continuous stream of information with very few limitations to what can be accomplished. We’re always available (or at least we’re expected to be). And for the past few years, emerging as moment-by-moment beings, we have one place that remains entirely unfriendly for our mobile life – our cars. And Honda seems to have caught onto this with their 2012 CR-V.
The 2012 Honda CR-V: Standard features in the LX (base model)
Base models are supposed to be stripped-down, affordable trim levels. Typically, they’re spared awesome extras like leather, a sunroof, or alloy wheels. While the LX doesn’t have these mostly cosmetic extras, the model does allow you to continue with a good part of your mobile life.
So, just what is Honda packing in their 2012 CR-V LX to allow for this? How does Bluetooth®, Pandora® Internet Radio Compatibility, USB Audio Interface, Rear View Camera, and SMS Text Message Function sound?
Email and social media are still missing from that list – but this could be a hint of things to come as standard features in cars of the future. Will future backseat DVD players really be DVD players, or will they be screens that integrate with your video library (or a video service like Netflix or Hulu)? Will Yelp replace Zagat ratings in navigation systems? And as our cars become more integrated with us, how will they eventually integrate with their outside environment?
We may have to wait for many of these answers. But at least for now, in this very moment, there’s at least one base model available that packs a piece of the future: The 2012 Honda CR-V LX.
