Are cars gadgets?

Are cars gadgets?

Has it come to this?

Engadget.com, the site about gadgets and consumer electronics now has an automotive editor. As of the beginning of the year, Tim Stevens, credited as a contributing editor on the sites “About Us” page, has been named the Engadget Automotive Editor.

Mr. Stevens has been one of the more prolific writers on the site, with well over 2,000 articles on a variety of topics, including cars. But let’s get back to cars as gadgets.

Admittedly, cars are more gadget-like than they ever have been in years past (although I do remember seeing a car when I was a kid that had a push-button automatic transmission selection system on the dash. Wikipedia tells me it was a Chrysler TorqueFlite transmission).

Let’s face it… a car that sends you a text message so that you don’t forget to plug it in is moving toward the gadget end of the spectrum. A car that has a selection of three different start-up sounds to choose from (or none, if you are so inclined) is kind of gadgety. And at the end of the day, when you get home and go through your daily ritual – plug in your iPhone, plug in your laptop, plug in your car… you’ve got to admit, it is sounding more like a gadget all the time. So perhaps it is time for Engadget to have their own Automotive Editor.