The future death of the automobile

I'll drive my 308.

'F the New America; F the New World.'


I see nothing in America to 'come home to.'




AND ...... I am not alone .....

 

I'm not selling one <stupid moderator censorship> thing I own that runs on gas.

That includes my Harley.

That includes my Ferrari.

I don't own a gun but would predict the repeal of the 2nd Amendment before I cannot enjoy my vehicles for the next 30 years.

 

Only way to have a car on demand is to have one sitting at your home or where ever you happen to be at the moment. He seems to be talking about autonomous Uber.

 

Self driving cars are a myth.

Think about it. The best 'entities' on the planet when it comes to piloting cars are humans. Even with the best training they get an excrement grade of 'C' for all the accidents plus deaths they cause.

Now you're advocating software fueled self driving cars. Really?

The only safe deployment of such cars is in self contained environments.

Just my opinion .

 

So as not to be misunderstood I'll preface my remarks by stating that I'm an avowed gearhead and professional mechanic who owns a pickup truck with a 7.3 liter engine, five cars, two airplanes, a lawn mower, a weed whacker and a chainsaw. I even have a butane powered soldering iron.

But I think the article fairly accurately predicts the future as it will inevitably eventually be and it's not really such a bad thing. As much of a gearhead as I am and as much as I love my Ferrari and Alfas and gas hog Land Rover you only need look around you to see how the automobile has become a scourage of the Earth. The amount of pavement and infrastructure we have created just to support it is completely ludicrous. In most places you can't walk to anything and people have become so lazy they won't even get out of the car to feed themselves.

So making it all more efficient and cleaner is a no brainer and I'm talking about the daily doldrum slog to work and back. This doesn't mean that the enjoyment of machines like our beloved f-cars needs to be eliminated or outlawed. I don't see that happening. Maybe in Australia but certainly not here in the USA. It might in fact be a vast improvement to get all of the doosh-bags in their Hyundais and Priuses off the roads and into their little autonomous people movers.

That's my opinion anyway.

 

^ I agree, up to a point. The USA is a huge country, and flying has become so detestable, it'd be nice to have an autonomous car that could obviate the need for us to be awake between Fort Worth and the Border Patrol checkpoint at Sierra Blanca. It'd be great to arrive at our friend's house in Scottsdale refreshed after an all day/night drive from Dallas. It'd be nice to drive to see relatives in NYC, without looking like heck, or having to split the journey up into multiple days. What I suspect, however, is that once the line has been crossed, political leaders, do gooders, and others who might welcome a nanny state will do their best to make autonomous vehicles the rule rather than an option.
T

 

P.J. O'Rourk called them "fun suckers" which seems to be apt.

 

Yeah, right... And we'll have flying cars soon too... Self driving cars aren't really a reality yet. It will take another 10-15 years minimum for them to be available in anything but high-end luxury cars. The average life of a car is, what 10-15 years? Modern cars sold today (2017) are super reliable so they may last even longer. so, in 15 years most people will be buying cars to replace their current car that may have some autonomous features, but they will still be buying personal cars. Batteries? Huge problem for electric cars and it isn't range-anxiety, it is charge-time anxiety. All that power network infrastructure to build, because it isn't the station, it is the power required to charge ten cars at once and get it done in 5min per car. That is like 60KW times 10 - 600KW in 5min all off the power grid mains and that does just 10 cars...
And when self driving cars are available to call up in a city, it isn't going to be cheap and it won't solve traffic jams or any other existing traffic issue like road maintenance. As James May said, "There are already self driving cars you can call on... They are called Taxis". Totally... I don't want to call a car for my morning commute to work and hope it makes it here and isn't like a movie theater inside. ...And this country isn't huge on public transportation or there would be lots more of it. How many people call a taxi for work every day?

So, where are they going to store all these cars-on-demand? Huge warehouses? Outdoor lots? We get a good bit of hail here. The Porsche dealership here is now trying to sell/fix millions of dollars of Porsches and Audis because of one 10 min storm. Land close to where people are is expensive and you'll need power - lots of it.

No, I think we are "safe" for at least another 50 years... I just saw someone riding a horse yesterday on the way home. They get pretty good grass mileage, but they do pollute a bit

Franny

 

You want to be awake to see southern New Mexico and Arizona? Id rather be awake to watch Ft Stockton go by than Lordsburg and Benson. How many genuine Indian rugs and serapes does a guy need anyway?

 

Amen.

By then I'll be dead and the Snowflakes can have it. They don't like or want cars anyway.

 

self driving cars will always have a manual driving mode, of course. So you will always need a driving license and driving abilities also when (and if...) there will be a real self driving car for sale (and not an "aided driving" car).

Vintage manual drive cars will be like manual transmission cars in the USA, were 95% of the cars have an automatic gearbox: priceless, with much bigger values than the self driving

ciao

 

I drive a 2012 car with manual transmission in the USA. It's a BMW.

I think the self driving car is still in the "horse and buggy" age, minus the horse.

 

I've been hearing crap like this for 40 years. It's just click bait.
I'm still waiting for the US to adopt the metric system...

 

LOL. Good point. But, you'd miss the excitement of The Thing in Dragoon, AZ!

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Thing_(roadside_attraction)

T

 

The car as we know it will die. There is no question about it. When is debatable but those who say it won't sound like people 120 years ago saying the horse would never be replaced.

What will happen is we will not actually buy cars in the future. We will lease them by the minute or mile or some kind of "energy used" value. Big auto makers will make them but never actually "sell" them. No more dealers.

We will call one up like Uber but it will have no driver. Then we will get in it and it will take us to work or the store or whatever. We can even call up the kind of vehicle we need at the time -- a single seater, a cargo transport like a truck or van, or family SUV like vehicle.

No more car insurance, no more maintenance, no more monthly car payments, no more depreciation, no more vehicle registration, no more car crashes, no more driver's license, no more drunk drivers, no more traffic jams (the computers will reroute every car to avoid it), no more clunkers on the road, and no more repo men. Also a lot smaller police force / highway patrol.

We still have horses today (albeit a LOT fewer than we used to have) so there will still be specialty cars in the future as long as gasoline is not made illegal to produce. But there is always a replacement for technology just around the corner. The car is no different.

 

I stopped there for gas once. Still not sure what the 'Thing" is.

 

Yep, THIS.

 

Want to talk about "the future"?

Let's talk car computers ... and ransomware.

Nobody will be hacking a 3x8.

 

Maybe in LA. But I don't see that happening in rural America in our lifetime.

So I guess Chef and The Farmer has a show on PBS. I didn't know. I called 2.5 months in advance and managed to get a reservation but the earliest table was -- 8:15PM. They are located in Kinston, NC. No Uber, no Lyft. Not even taxi service in that town.

 

Yeah, and there a slew of articles in Popular Mechanics from the 60's on of "Flying Cars" and the thing is the FAA can't even figure out little electric drones. These flying cars might be a tad more involved for the poor, antiquated FAA. Plus, they already have air taxis... They are called helicopters...

So, the thing is... There are LOTS more important things to worry about that are happening right now... I really don't want to schedule out my worrying for the next 50 years. If you like your car, go drive the wheels off it. If not, sell it. Pretty simple. You are good on the road for a while - pretty sure about that...

Franny

Sorry akimmel... I don't mean to pounce on your post. Flying cars are probably the coolest thing ever. Being able to call one to your back yard for a ride would be to awesome. Maybe some day... f

 

Difference between that and this, is that there are about a dozen different self-driving vehicles on the road today, everything from cars to semi-trucks. Millions of self-driving miles logged for some of the manufacturers. The technology here, it's the infrastructure and (surprise) our legislators that have to play catch-up.

The Mayor called it. The folks that're whining about this are the ones who'd still be in a horse-drawn cart, lighting their oil lamps at night, hand-copying the books they want to read...

 

There have been about a dozen "flying car" designs, too. But the regulations killed them.

You say that like it's a bad thing.
If you want to impress a girl, you get a limo. But if you really want to impress her, get a horse and carriage.

On the "progress" front, ask publishers about e-books, ask RIAA about MP3, or ask the MPAA about movie downloads.

Don't dismiss "infrastructure" and legislation as trivia.
Creating a new paradigm requires the whole package, not just the blinking lights.


There has been research into self driving vehicles for half a century.
(Although, with '70s computer technology, it was more like a panel truck to carry the AI neural network.)
If even human drivers can't be prepared for all of the issues a car will encounter in city traffic, how can you expect a computer to manage it?
(Deus ex machina aside. )
Self driving vehicles in the '70s could handle 90% of situations.
But it's those other 10% that raise your insurance rates.

What we may see is a hybrid approach, where some limited access roads will provide autonomous control from entrance to exit, and the vehicle will return to manual control for local roads.
(45 years ago, that required guide wires embedded in the road -- an expense governments didn't want.)
That bridges the gap between "public transit" and private cars -- the ability to carry your junk in the car and have it run on a "metro line", and not have to park at the station, or get a cab at the other end.


And where does the liability rest *when* things goes wrong?
(In the '60s, IBM dumped software maintenance for the 9020s in the ARTCCs, because Lloyds realized that, with IBM doing hardware and software, IBM would be liable for any air accident traced to the computers.)
This is probably the biggest bar to self driving cars becoming common.
No company will build a car that puts the company at risk for every accident.
No city government is going to elect themselves to accept the liability.

The most likely "approach" will be a lot of finger pointing, with nobody taking responsibility.
Which is no answer at all.

From a legislative standpoint, designating the human driver as liable for everything has the political advantage that the individual car owner doesn't have a lot of lobbyist support.

So far, as I understand it, the "theory" is that the human occupant is still designated as "responsible" for what the "self-driving" car does, even when operating on automatic control.
So "autonomous" cars are still not "autonomous".

 

My 2 cents is that fewer people will drive cars so the demand will drop generally and only the top few percent of the vintage and classic car market will hold their value through the shift. Look at the vintage market where only the top few percent are now worth what they cost to restore. We have the added disadvantage of the Magnum PI generation stopping driving and dying off.
With this cheerful news I wish you all a fun weekend