Auto, high-tech sectors in car clash

Which gets spectrum: Faster Wi-Fi or talking vehicles?

WASHINGTON — Cars that wirelessly communicate with one another are finally ready for the road, automakers and government officials say.

The technology has the potential to help reduce traffic accidents, improve the safety of self-driving cars and someday maybe even help solve traffic jams.

But there’s a catch. The cable television and high-tech industries want to take away a large share of the radio airwaves the government dedicated for transportation in 1999 and use it instead for superfast Wi-Fi service. Auto industry officials are fighting to hang on to as much of the spectrum as they can, saying they expect they will ultimately need all of it for the new vehicle-to-vehicle communications, or V2V.

The government and the auto industry have spent more than a decade and more than $1 billion researching and testing vehicle communication technology. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration is expected to propose as early as next month that new cars and trucks come equipped with it. General Motors isn’t waiting for the proposal, saying it will include the technology in Cadillac CTS sedans before the end of the year.

“We’re losing 35,000 people every year [to traffic crashes],” said Harry Lightsey, a General Motors lobbyist. “This technology has the power to dramatically reduce that. To me, the ability of somebody to download movies or search the Internet or whatever should be secondary to that.”

The fight pits two government agencies against each other: the Federal Communications Commission, which regulates spectrum and sympathizes with Wi-Fi proponents, and the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, which regulates auto safety and has long made the vehicle communication technology a top priority. The White House, which is reviewing the safety agency’s proposal to require the technology in new cars, is caught between two of its goals: greater auto safety and faster wireless service.