SoylentNews is people
SoylentNews
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: 5, Informative) by mhajicek on Monday November 13 2017, @04:37PM
The car will know the identity of it's occupants through some security measure or other. The government will edit an approved list of destinations for each occupant. If you're a known political dissident you'll be kept away from protests. The lower classes will be kept out of rich neighborhoods and away from anyone with power. If you have a warrant on you, are wanted for questioning, or sometimes just for a random search and a dose if intimidation, the car will bring you right to the police station.
The spacelike surfaces of time foliations can have a cusp at the surface of discontinuity. - P. Hajicek