Joe Klamar/AFP/Getty Images
It didn't occur to me until I started googling that the reason I've seen a glut of driverless car headlines today is that there was a big presentation by Toyota at CES (Consumer Electronics Show) in Las Vegas of the autonomous car technology they're working on.
Just to catch you up, you probably already know about Google's pioneering initiative. Add to that Toyota/Lexus, Audi, Volvo, and Nissan.
Add to that the fact that California, Florida and Nevada have opened their legislative arms to autonomous vehicles. (For a funny bit of insight on the powers behind Florida politics, check out the political attack ad in this item and the rendering for this planned south Florida development.) And look slightly ahead to pending legislation from Hawaii, New Jersey, Oklahoma and Washington, D.C.
One day in the not-very-distant future we'll tell our grandchildren about the crazy old days when we had to use our hands and our feet at the same time to drive our own cars (and kill each other by the tens of thousands each year).
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Hooray for innovation!! Goodbye 3 million truck driving jobs. Let's put everyone out of work and defund the welfare state.
How many people were put out of work by the invention of the automobile? Seems like we're doing all right anyway.
Millions put out of work by the mechanical loom. More millions by the sewing machine. Still more millions by the combine and tractor.
Yes, in an ideal world robots will do all the work,, and those people who aren't working will,,,,? starve to death? or will we acknowledge the need for a decent smart welfare state?
Luz, check out a book by Jeremy Rifkin called The End of Work. These kind of innovations have the potential to bring wide spread luxury across the world. But due to capitalism, it will bring luxury to the top 1% and leave the rest of us with nothing.
Ant Eye... (why do I get the feeling you tend to take the opposite view a lot?)
Very few people were actually put out of work because of the advent of the automobile... Many more were put to work in manufacture, marketing, oil refining, gas stations, maintenance, transportation services, and competition...
Horses, on the other hand...
snark
Sounds great except for that whole eventual RECALL thing because a whole bunch of folks died after they realize the car as driver isn't as safe as the human as driver.
I gather you've never had the pleasure of driving in Rhode Island.
That is the biggest problem that we face. The middle class don't have a yacht to show off his friends.
And go to eat at McDonald. But these politicians buy yacht, expenses SUV and take their friends to expenses restaurant, and they can deduct that from the income tax to pay less taxes
And I can't comprehend how there still people voting to put this idiots in office
If you can't even drive your own car, you might as well be on a train.
Not one peep tonight about THIS:
Sen.Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) predicted that Hagel would be "the most antagonistic secretary of Defense toward the state of Israel in our nation's history" and called it an "in-your-face nomination."
Disappointing Rachael to say the least!
There are some things I won't go for, and automated cars aren't one of them. Yabba-dabba-doo.
I wanna see one of these mechanical marvels deal with a drunk fare...
Relatively easily...
Lock the doors automatically when the ride begins... record the passenger's behaviour... If the passenger fails to meet certain parameters - belligerence, failure to behave, damages the cab, refusal to pay - divert the cab to the nearest police station, submit the recording as evidence, lock him in the drunk tank, sue for reparations as needed...
First thing, largely due to regulation, cars are faster and safer than they ever have been.
When I was in high school, my friend upgraded his ride to a 1968 302cid (4949cc Windsor V8) Ford Mustang GT hardtop(the lightest bodystyle) driven by a then-newly-retired 65 year old school teacher back and forth to work since new. We took the engine out and down to a local machine shop and had it rebuilt and over-bored it 0.030in(so now a 304cid/4979cc) and the reciprocating and rotating parts balanced to half a gram. With a mildly hot camshaft it would idle relatively steady between 750 and 850 rpm. After a lot of careful tuning and running 100LL (100 octane Low Lead) avgas(higher lead content (1.2-2g per gal) than premium pump auto gas) purchased from the local airport, with the largest slicks that would fit in the fenders on actual magnesium rims 'borrowed' from my brother, down at the Baylands Raceway(the fastest dragstrip in North America due to the sea level humid, cool air) it would do 14.9secs @ 93mph in the quarter mile with a hot distributor and the ignition advanced just to the edge of ping. It averaged 15mpg in ordinary driving.
Today, you you can drive off the Honda dealer's lot with a loaded Odyssey Touring Elite minivan mommymobile with the only engine available, a 3.5L(3471cc) V6 which idles sweetly. This 8-passenger, 4573lb minivan will run 15.9secs @ 89mph in the quarter mile at the 850ft elevation of Bloomfield Hills, MI. Drive it 40,000 miles, as Car and Driver did, and it'll improve 0.3 sec and 1mph. And your toddlers can watch Shrek 2 in the back seat while you do so. In auto enthusiast magazine driving it'll average a C/D observed: 25 mpg. This is thanks to the pressure of meeting emissions guidelines forcing more efficient combustion of precious 200 Million year-old sunshine stored as refined gasoline, no more tetraethyl-lead crutch for octane boost, better aerodynamics, and high-strength steel. Without emitting a gram of lead into the air to damage those toddlers brains.
Second, you can't argue with the benefits to the sight-disabled community.