It is a matter of record that Renault won the first-ever Grand Prix race in 1906, a thing that took 12 hours over two days of racing near Le Mans. One hundred years ago, Renault built the FT, the first tank with a rotating turret. And, of course, Renault built the Alliance, one of Americans’ last firm memories of Franco-American automotive collaboration (because most of America still doesn’t recognize that Nissan USA’s headquarters in Franklin, Tennessee, represents the French firm’s enduring presence here). But Renault also built the relentlessly rad R5 Turbo, collaborated with Alpine on the magical A110, and, of course, boasts a current Formula 1 program. Now, it has taken more than a century’s worth of pedal-to-the-metal experience and poured it into . . . socks?
As an addendum to a T-shirt that records a driver’s heart rate, Renault has teamed up with Sensoria to develop sensor-equipped socks meant to measure what a driver’s feet are up to during any given lap. When does the foot move from the gas to the brake? How quick/violent is the motion? By measuring the motion of the feet via these super stockings, driver data can be compared with vehicle telemetry to winnow out deficiencies. [To avoid any confusion, pictured above is a plain old dumb sock, being run over by a stupid German wheel.]
Renault announced the socks at this year’s CES show in Las Vegas, a well-known hotbed of leadership in the sartorial arts. It suggested these foot coverings could be employed, along with the aforementioned shirt, smart gloves, a connected helmet, and some manner of Fitbit-like wristband. The partners neglected to mention whether Renault and Sensoria will also collaborate on moisture-wicking briefs designed to measure the degree of pucker drivers experience in hairy situations. We imagine it’s only a matter of time.
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