Autonomous Car - End of sports car ?

Did you see Mad Max?

Jeff

 

I watched a BBC special where James May made a good point. He said something like

"We will never go to Autonomous vehicles because when there is an accident Americans won't know who to sue, and they don't like that..."

 

I get criticized for saying this every time I bring it up but I can honestly see the day where high performance sports cars are outlawed, highly regulated or heavily taxed (aka like the fuel mileage penalty we have today) in an effort to get them off the road.

15 years? Maybe not but who is to say what the public's fascination for cars will be in the future.

And you have to ask yourself what the value of a 2 second 0 to 60 car would have in the real world. As new models replace old ones that need to be superior to their replacements to get people to want to upgrade, the end results will be cars so fast that at some point society will insist that it stop. I can see a day when cars are limited in their top speed and their acceleration times.

Luckily, that won't be for some time so we all have the chance to drive are cars today as we wish.

Some very smart person also said that in the end, there will be only 3 giant car companies in the world. 1 in the US, 1 in Asia, and 1 in Europe. Economies of scale will force these giants to swallow others in a last ditch attempt for survival. It's the final logical step if you observe the current trends into the future.

Sad really.

 

Doubt it. No laws were passed to get the brass era cars off the road. I would see more of a "waste of natural resources" penalty on new high performance cars, but not an outright ban. If an OEM thinks there is money to be made, the product will be offered.

 

As long as there is racing and marketing spinoff products, ie, sports cars, that breed enthusiasts that beget sales, the sports car will continue to exist, even if it is a magnetic hover craft. The alleged doomsday "death of the sports car" will never happen.

 

They will never outlaw sports cars. I could see large taxes though...

Remember its always been about money and it always will be.

A Prius cut me off yesterday and as I pulled alongside him and shook my head in disgust he started cursing at me and my gas guzzler. Never once attempted to give the 'sorry' look.

Ive cut people off accidentally. I always give the 'sorry Im an idiot' look.

 

here's why I think this will never happen:

Liability.

eventually the computers will screw up and cause an accident. actually, I think that will happen rather quickly

then 100% of the liability lies not on the driver, but the manufacturer and/or the government (depending on how the vehicle is controlled, how the data is managed, etc).

Nobody is going to want to take that risk, especially in a litigious society like America. so, cars will have more "driver aids" that might look like an autonomous vehicle (active cruise control, lane warning correction, etc etc) but the driver will still be involved, so we have someone to point the blame at!

(much like the James May quote above! )

 

Speaking of..... look at the Prius and the massive negative publicity and lawsuits for Toyota as an example of a car whose electronic troubles were apparently "untraceable." When you overengineer anything you risk the machine itself controlling its owner.

 

Yes the holier-than-thou Prius culture is really laughable considering the Prius is just as environmentally unfriendly than a combustion-only vehicle.

 

Close. But the US will never go to autonomous vehicles, because if anything goes wrong, everybody will know *exactly* who to sue.
And if it ain't the shlebb on the street, the manufacturers and governments don't like *that*.

No town will provide an autonomous vehicle guidance grid in their roads, because if it fails, they'd get creamed for liability.
And they don't even want to spend the money to fix potholes.

No manufacturer will market an autonomous vehicle that doesn't need support from the road, because if it goes wrong, the liability falls entirely on them.

Back in the '60s, IBM refused a contract for software support for FAA's air traffic computers, because if they built them *and* maintained the software, they'd be on the line if an air accident was ever attributed to "computer error". So they left the FAA stuck with maintaining the software.

Look at the troubles the D.C. Metro had last year with their train autopilots -- even with an operator watching over them.

And would you want to be on the roads with an automated vehicle driven by a system that gets maintained by the average car owner?
(E.g. not maintained at all.)

 

More likely to happen in EU or Asia first wont happen in USA for more than that exactly bcus of litigious reasons

 

My uncle has a country place that no one knows about. He says it used to be a farm before the motor law. -Red Barchetta by Rush.

Who knew a Canadian rock band could be so prophetic?

 

Very cool song!

 

Re: Autonomous Vehicles: Just take a bus, and wall off each seat for privacy: What's the difference?

 

What he said.

At least in the U.S., the government has never outlawed an existing car. It has mandated changes like seat belts, safety glass, side impact protection, etc., be included in cars made after a given date.

Actually, based on my drive up I-15 today I'd be ecstatic if autonomous drive cars were made available to the 57 mph-in-a-65-zone-while-gabbing-on-the-cell-phone crowd. Truth is most people aren't really interested in driving, per se, so for most people autonomous cars wouldn't be a bad idea if they worked.

 

It would also mean the end of SPEEDING TICKETS.
This would reduce the revenue stream for every town in the USA, and put millions of Police, Judges and Lawyers out of work.

 

Unlike 95% of all drivers--I actually like driving. I would hate being in a vehicle going to where it is going without being in control of that vehicle. {And no I don;t take busses or fly in comercial aircraft, either. I am willing to sail on ocean liners, however.} I cannot think of a single reason or a single place I drive where I would want the vehicle to go there without me actually doing it.

This is where the atonomous cars leave me cold. Why would I want a car that does the driving chores for me? I don't.

As to the end of speeding tickets: the drivers in this country have a means at their disposal to end speeding tickets <basically> forever. If not a single driver exceeded the speed limits for three whole months, the ticket revenue system would collapse and be abandoned. But everyone (that is 100%) have to participate, and not a single person per state can be caugth speeding.

 

Won't work. The towns'll just lower the speed limit to 0.

In MA, there's a stretch of Rte 20 (the main highway through town), posted 25 mph. In the neighboring town, it's 50 mph.

They don't actually enforce 25, but it gives them "probable cause" to stop anybody.

 

What if you had a lane physically separated from other vehicles, and your autonomous car could travel at 150 MPH in that lane, and shave significant time off your travel ?