las vegas germans love the latest wave of touchfree car controls which respond to the flick of a wrist or the swipe of a hand as it means no messy fingerprints on their spotless dashboards italians known for an extravagant hand gesture or two are not so sure a simplistic stereotype but it captures the split among the worlds drivers over the newest incar tech on display at the consumer electronics show in las vegas this week germanys bmw demonstrated a 7 series car that recognizes five simple gestures from a finger twirl to the right to raise the music volume and a hand swipe to decline an incoming call japans pioneer had a minty scent shoot out of a dashboard to revive a driver after a car seat sensor detected a falling heart rate a possible prelude to nodding off its certainly weird certainly odd and certainly unproven but pioneer is not off base to connect one sensory organ to others said mark boyadjis an analyst at consulting firm ihs automotive given that drivers have enough to do keeping their hands on the wheel and eyes on the road touchfree controls for some nonessential functions makes sense but it is not clear all drivers want gesture eyetracking or even lipreading technology the jury is out on how widespread it will become said jeffrey owens chief technology officer for delphi automotive which made bmws gesture softwarenational differences the japanese some of the keenest consumers of novelty technology are likely fans of pioneers biosensing system that squirts out fragrance said the companys marketing head russ johnston enthusiastic visitors to pioneers booth at ces suggested cappuccino and peppermint as good wakeup smells he said the japanese were the first to embrace backup or reversing assistance because they did not want to bang their cars said guillaume devauchelle head of innovation at french auto parts supplier valeo who identified cultural preferences as a huge factor in adoption theres no universal solution said devauchelle whose company hired an ethnologist to make sense of different cultures with different tastes he pointed out germans dislike of touchscreens the risks of gesture control with expressive italians and the eager uptake of any kind of new tech by the chinese regardless of national tastes the market for gesture recognition technology in vehicles and the cheaper more prevalent proximity sensing in which the approach of a hand will trigger a touchable menu screen is growing rapidly ihs automotive predicts a sevenfold jump in unit sales of such technology to 304 million in 2021 from 37 million today but full consumer buyin is an open question and cost may keep such features a limited luxury optionsafety questions safety experts have cautiously welcomed dashboard simplification but note gesture control and other such features may actually add to confusion if a driver doesnt know how to use it will that increase the distraction asked henry jasny vice president of advocates for highway and auto safety in washington theres no