With the total number of vehicles steadily increasing and soon approaching one billion, the world is facing serious challenges in terms of both safety of road transport and sustainability. Consequently the two major persistent issues for the automotive industry are improved safety and reduced emissions. The integration of complex microsystems with enhanced intelligence has enabled an increase in efficiency of the previously dumb internal combustion engine by an average 1% annually during the last 20 years. In the future, such smart systems may help to leverage novel powertrain concepts towards the zero emission vehicle. Particularly for electric cars, anticipatory power management and efficient driving assistance will be needed to overcome range limitations. Electrical in-wheel motors equipped with novel miniaturized functionalities will be required. Intelligent systems for tire monitoring and control deserve special attention as well, since insufficient tire pressure accounts for more than 3% of the efficiency losses in the car.