Bose is finest recognized for its high-quality sound tools, from earbuds to noise-canceling Bose headphones and the prodigious line of SoundLink audio system. The corporate has dabbled in different areas, although, together with a extremely superior seat for semi-truck drivers, itself a byproduct of one thing else the corporate as soon as labored on that had nothing to do with sound.
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Again in 1980, a Bose analysis and improvement group generally known as Mission Sound, headed by founder Amar Bose, started engaged on a mind-boggling technological development referred to as the Magic Carpet automobile suspension system. Whereas old-school conventional shock absorbers might solely react to highway circumstances after encountering them, and newer “energetic” programs adjusted in real-time, the Magic Carpet was touted as being actually proactive by sensing the highway forward and adapting to circumstances earlier than reaching them. The “magic” was achieved by changing the automobile’s springs and dampers with linear electromagnetic motors so every wheel might transfer independently from the physique.
Bose unveiled this tech throughout a press convention in 2004, utilizing a 1994 Lexus LS400 four-door sedan as an indication prototype. It doesn’t matter what the highway (or driver) threw it — undulating roads, hard-stop braking, even leaping over a wood beam – the automobile maintained a easy, completely degree experience. The Bose system was certainly magical, however after the fanfare died, it was seemingly forgotten like some nice Arabian folklore.
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The Magic Carpet sailed away
Then, in 2016, the tech web site CNET filmed a phase that after once more confirmed off the 2-by-6-beam-jumping Lexus geared up with the Magic Carpet system. The robust linear electromagnetic motors put in in every wheel might transfer up and down as a lot as 8.5 inches, all managed by a big laptop housed within the trunk able to responding and adjusting over 100 occasions per second.
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Finally, nothing got here of it as a result of the system proved far too heavy and costly. So, in 2017 Bose bought every little thing concerned with Mission Sound — together with the patents, software program, and the entire automobiles — to ClearMotion, an organization attempting to construct “the world’s first proactive experience system” (per thedrive.com). Bose had put in the Magic Carpet in two LS400s (one white, the opposite silver) with a 3rd normal (darkish gray) mannequin used because the comparability “haven’t” automobile, with out the high-tech suspension system. And for so long as ClearMotion owned them, they have been all saved in storage.
In 2018, automotive-world information websites started reporting that Bose’s superior Magic Carpet suspension was coming to manufacturing. ClearMotion claimed its “digital chassis system” (because it was now being referred to as) could be “the quickest proactive experience system that exists at present.” Besides the system by no means materialized. ClearMotion ended up downsizing and determined it now not wanted or needed the three outdated Lexuses, so it bought all of them to an worker — testing engineer Tom McVay.
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The Magic Carpet rides once more!
McVay stated that if he hadn’t purchased they automobiles, they’d’ve most likely been scrapped. His every day driver is the gray “haven’t” mannequin with out the spellbinding suspension. The silver Lexus geared up with Magic Carpet (seen in early check movies proven at a press convention in 2004) is used as a elements automobile to maintain McVay’s commuter automobile functioning.
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And the white Lexus? In October 2024, the CNET video star confirmed up as simply one other automobile on the market on Fb Market. With solely 53,079 miles on the odometer, McVay listed it at simply $2,500 (money solely, no trades) … for a automobile Bose was rumored to have sunk $100 million into. One caveat: it did not include a battery. It shortly bought to Michael Morgan, who pulled the 1UZ V8 engine and put in it in a 1995 Toyota 4Runner.
Ah, however that is not the place the story ends. ClearMotion continues to be alive and kicking. Its model of Magic Carpet — referred to as ClearMotion1 — would not use linear electromagnetic motors, as a substitute utilizing the Activalve. These electrohydraulic gadgets sit at every nook of the automobile and, utilizing a modified model of the Bose software program, present a proactive chassis managed by state-of-the-art road-surface-fingerprinting software program. It was just lately introduced that ClearMotion1 is put in within the new electrical Nio ET9 (one in every of the best Chinese language automobiles we want have been bought within the U.S.). Moreover, ClearMotion is partnering with Porsche and in talks with different European automakers.
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