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Bob Lutz, former General Motors Vice Chair, opines:
It saddens me to say it, but we are approaching the end of the automotive era.
The auto industry is on an accelerating change curve. For hundreds of years, the horse was the prime mover of humans and for the past 120 years it has been the automobile.
Now we are approaching the end of the line for the automobile because travel will be in standardized modules.
The end state will be the fully autonomous module with no capability for the driver to exercise command. You will call for it, it will arrive at your location, you'll get in, input your destination and go to the freeway.
...
The vehicles, however, will no longer be driven by humans because in 15 to 20 years — at the latest — human-driven vehicles will be legislated off the highways.The tipping point will come when 20 to 30 percent of vehicles are fully autonomous. Countries will look at the accident statistics and figure out that human drivers are causing 99.9 percent of the accidents.
Is he right? Is the age of the automobile coming to an end?
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Monday November 13 2017, @02:14PM (3 children)
It is always risky to predict if/when/how a new technology will roll out.
The man has a lot of domain knowledge in the area, so he's probably correct that something will happen in this area.
But his what and how seem unlikely.
The most glaring thing in his statement is that performance won't matter because everybody will be going the same speed.
This seems unlikely for two reasons.
First not all vehicles are safe at higher speeds, no matter who or what is driving them.
Second, not all vehicles go fast up hills.
What seems likely to me is that there will be a gradual change over time.
Perhaps something like the HOV lanes we have now will be reserved for vehicles with specific capabilities.
(Power, sensor, comm, and driver (human or auto) skill.)
I drive a 50foot RV rig which depending on weather is unstable in the 50-80Mph range.
I don't see this sort of thing going away or moving to the fast lane.
(Score: 2) by DannyB on Monday November 13 2017, @04:54PM
Yes. That.
A number of technologies, including the automobile itself, have changed society in ways that nobody expected.
While I am quite sure self driving vehicles will profoundly change society, I think we are still unable to foresee some of the changes.
To transfer files: right-click on file, pick Copy. Unplug mouse, plug mouse into other computer. Right-click, paste.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday November 13 2017, @04:54PM (1 child)
> I drive a 50foot RV rig which depending on weather is unstable in the 50-80Mph range.
Does it smooth out over 80 mph? Just asking...
Possibly related? A motorhead friend insisted that every car had it's "happy speed" (or speed range) where it felt the best on the freeway. Often this was pretty fast, at least for the sports cars that he often owned.
Since every car is a collection of masses connected by "springs" of various stiffness, my guess was that he found a speed that minimized the excitation of resonant frequencies: engine on engine mounts, suspension resonances (some high frequency), slight wheel imbalance (also, higher harmonics from tire non-uniformity), cabin boom (audible) from engine firing rate, etc, etc.
With all the effort that goes into making cars quiet and smooth these days, it's harder to detect these resonances. They are there if you just pay attention and listen/feel for them, but in newer cars they are well damped or masked by other systems. An early attempt fixed a steering wheel shake at idle...by tuning the front bumper mount stiffness! Yes, this stuff can be complex!
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday November 14 2017, @01:23AM
I used to own a Datsun that liked doing either 90 or 110 km/h. (Highway speed limit here is 100 and the cops have almost zero tolerance, they will ticket you at 102.) If you tried to sit on the limit it was like balancing on a rolling log, it would creep higher or lower and you had to constantly adjust the accelerator.