This week Gale Banks and Lars Ullrich of Robert Bosch LLC gave a talk on clean diesel in Los Angeles. The intent of the meeting was to reinforce the idea of diesel engines as a fun, functional, and viable option for the motoring public. Obviously, we needed no convincing, but we attend the luncheon anyway to get a look at two of Banks’ newest products.
The 2009 Jetta you see here is Banks’ latest project, and features a prototype cold-air intake fitted to the amazing 140hp/236lb-ft 2.0L VW diesel engine. The intake will likely see production after it completes development—but the real highlight for us was the new Banks IQ vehicle interface mounted to the windshield. We’d been hearing rumors of the Banks IQ for months, and finally got to see it this week.
Basically the IQ is a handheld touch-screen computer that is designed to interface with the vehicle. Think of it as an iPhone for your car or truck. The unit plugs into the data link connector under the dash, and is able to read the information being passed over the vehicle’s controller-area network (CAN) bus. The IQ has access to all of the information the vehicle’s computer does, and through various screens (that Banks calls environments) the driver can interpret the data with a number of different digital gauge configurations. And keep in mind, this isn’t just for Volkswagens. When the Banks IQ goes into production it will work with any ’96-and-newer vehicles.
There are other products on the market that offer similar features, but the Banks IQ promises to take this technology far beyond just giving data readouts. Banks’ intent is to give the customer an interface that will allow them to also control their aftermarket hardware through the IQ display. We’ve already seen it run the Banks Six-Gun tuner and new Bnaks SpeedBrake, but in the future the IQ architecture will also be able to control things like nitrous, water injection, and propane—basically anything that can be computer controlled.
In addition to the vehicle performance menues, the IQ will also feature a full suite of media capabilities. It will allow you to view photos, movies, and listen to music. The unit also has built-in GPS capability, is Bluetooth enabled, and did we mention that it also runs Windows CE?
After seeing the Banks IQ, we were left wondering—is there anything this product won’t be able to do?