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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, Informative) by dwilson on Tuesday November 14 2017, @06:34AM (2 children)

    by dwilson (2599) Subscriber Badge on Tuesday November 14 2017, @06:34AM (#596686) Journal

    I farm for a living, and I tell you truth, you've got no need to go looking at chinese brands if you want a simple tractor. You can buy some good, solid, made-in-(north)-america gems for rock bottom prices.

    Most of these (quickly searched for to link here) models can be found still in a mostly-running condition:

    http://tractors.wikia.com/wiki/Case_900 [wikia.com]
    http://tractors.wikia.com/wiki/Case_930 [wikia.com]
    http://tractors.wikia.com/wiki/Massey-Harris_744D [wikia.com]
    http://tractors.wikia.com/wiki/Massey-Harris_Pacemaker [wikia.com]
    http://tractors.wikia.com/wiki/Allis-Chalmers_IB [wikia.com]

    My Great-grandfather operated his entire farm with a Case 900. We've got a 930 still in service here at our farm, it's PTO runs most of the augers, as well as the baler. it's bucket lifts anything I need lifted, including 1000lb+ bales. My brother uses an old Massey 744D as an acreage tractor, and in the winter he plows snow with it so he can get his semi out for work (He hauls fluid for a living). I'll admit I have a soft-spot in my heart for Massey, being that they were a Canadian company and briefly achieved the 'biggest agricultural machinery company in the world' status. One day I'll buy it off him and restore it proper-like.

    An old tractor is nothing to be sneered at. They can be had cheap, they're easy to maintain, inexpensive to operate, and very, very easy to fix. Best part? The engineers who designed them hadn't even -heard- about computers.

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  • (Score: 2) by c0lo on Tuesday November 14 2017, @06:42AM (1 child)

    by c0lo (156) Subscriber Badge on Tuesday November 14 2017, @06:42AM (#596690) Journal

    I farm for a living, and I tell you truth, you've got no need to go looking at chinese brands if you want a simple tractor. You can buy some good, solid, made-in-(north)-america gems for rock bottom prices.

    Given that I'm dwelling in Australia, the made-in-(north)-america is a problem. A shipping one to be more precise.

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    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
    • (Score: 1) by dwilson on Wednesday November 15 2017, @03:24AM

      by dwilson (2599) Subscriber Badge on Wednesday November 15 2017, @03:24AM (#597123) Journal

      Given that I'm dwelling in Australia

      Heh. Well, that would change things around a bit, yep.

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