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posted by martyb on Monday November 13 2017, @11:00AM   Printer-friendly
from the I-prefer-the-Age-of-Aquarius dept.

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?


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  • (Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Tuesday November 14 2017, @02:31AM

    by JoeMerchant (3937) on Tuesday November 14 2017, @02:31AM (#596617)

    I worked for the Florida Department of Transportation in 1987, at that time the official state maps weren't 100% accurate, even for well traveled paved roads. I found an interesting route home from work on the official map one day, drove there in person to find a canal bisecting my route, with no bridge - not a tiny error, and not the only one like that in the county.

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