And that will be the end to the Corvette and many other sport cars.

 

LOL...when that happens whos gonna care about driving a car in a simulator ?? Give me that simulator with a copy of the latest Kate Upton disc....

 

Here's another article, from today, about a plan by Nissan and Renault to introduce self-driving cars over the next four years, leading to cars that can drive on city streets by 2020. I don't know if that will happen by then, but those who think autonomous cars won't happen until after we middle-aged people are all dead are just wrong.

http://www.reuters.com/article/us-au...edName=topNews

However, even after autonomous cars are common on the road, I believe human-driven cars such as the Corvettes we drive today will remain legal for many, many years. We may indeed all be dead before it is illegal to drive your own car. So we don't really have much to worry about on that score, in my opinion. The only way that would change is if 1) autonomous cars prove so utterly successful that it becomes reckless to allow humans to drive and 2) technology for retrofitting older cars to be autonomous is developed and made available at a feasible price to car owners. The first one might happen (I trust computers more than I trust the average driver), but the second seems unlikely to me. Making a C6 autonomous would probably be quite expensive, not to mention a C1 or C2. But who knows what the future holds?

 

I totally agree and those that refuse to recognize that fact just aren't paying attention and do not realize the big money that is pushing effort!

I urge everyone to get their head out of the sand and write their legislators before your cherished driving experience goes the way of the horse and buggy!

Jim

 

What do you want us to write? Ask our legislators not to allow autonomous cars? If so, that is a hopeless quest, and I'm not in favor of that, anyway. I welcome autonomous cars for the average driver, because I don't want to be killed or injured by some idiot who is doing something other than driving the car. Once autonomous cars become common, accounting for over 50% of new car sales, I believe the highways will be much safer than they are today. Accidents caused by distracted drivers, drunk drivers, and just plain bad drivers will plummet. And we who actually like driving (and paying attention to it) can continue to do so.

Here is what I foresee: Once these autonomous cars become widespread and prove their safety, insurance companies will start giving big discounts to the owners of those cars, making them even more attractive to buyers. We who choose to drive ourselves will effectively end up paying a premium for the privilege. That's alright with me, because I'll probably have one of each type of car. One for everyday use and one just for fun, and the roads will be safer for all of us.

 

It’s only a hopeless quest if the voting public and automotive consumers standby idly and allow autonomous vehicles to me forced down our throats!

I’ll never buy into the hype that a computer can drive my car better/safer then I can! I guess that you never had a computer freeze or crash or cell phone drop calls or GPS give you erroneous directions? Computers fail on a daily basis and can NOT possibly properly respond to the millions of dangerous driving scenarios that well-trained drivers safely deal with on a daily basis!

The legal liabilities are going to be litigious nightmare and as for notion that insurance companies are going to benevolently step forward and substantially reduce rates….well, that’s just a unrealistic pipe dream that is laughable and will never materialize! Over past couple of decades, automobiles have become increasingly safer, in-part due to insurance industry lobbied design and technology changes…are your insurance premiums lower than they were 20 years ago?

How lazy are we going to get? Personally, I enjoy driving my cars too much to relinquish that pleasure to a computer!

Jim

 

I guess you'll be surprised when autonomous cars become common where you live. And it has been proven already that these cars (that is, their computer systems) make mistakes far less often than human drivers do. So far, not a single autonomous car crash has been attributable to just the car, and all of the crashes have been the result of human error of some kind. I'm not saying that these cars will never make a mistake; it's almost certain that they will. But they will be far safer than the average human driver.

What actually does worry me is the potential for hacking, which could really cause problems. That issue will have to be resolved before these cars are truly practical in widespread application.

First, of course insurance companies won't lower rates benevolently. They will do it because market pressures force them to. That's how capitalism works. If one company can undercut the pricing of a competitor, it will do so to gain market share, and soon other companies will have to follow suit. A prime example of this is airline ticket pricing.

Second, yes, I believe insurance premiums are lower today than in the past, all things being equal. You have to remember that modern cars are much more expensive than old cars, even adjusted for inflation. All the comfort, convenience, performance, and technology options that we demand on our cars today make them more expensive. My first car was a 1965 Rambler, and it was such a simple machine that it could be easily and inexpensively repaired when hit and damaged. New cars are much harder to repair after an accident. Furthermore, I do think the improved safety of modern cars has reduced the rate of increase in premiums. Of course, it's very difficult to compare insurance over decades, because of the many variables, and the above is just my subjective opinion.

I just read an article about how Baby Boomers (most of us here) are much less willing to accept autonomous cars than are Millennials and other "tech savvy" people, in general. That's too bad, because one of the potential benefits of these cars will be allowing elderly people freedom of transport when they would otherwise be unable or unwilling to drive themselves. If my 94-year-old dad, who had poor vision, could have gotten around in an autonomous car, his quality of life would have been so much better.

 

I don't agree. I think getting people out of cars will be harder than getting them to give up their guns. Now if your saying that the government wont make it very hard to get gas or to register them then maybe theres a discussion there.
Don't forget Senators and Congressman drive also.

Clif

 

 

Saddle up...

 

Autonomous cars could cure traffic essentially overnight; bumper to bumper dead stop traffic commonly caused by one single car stopping to look at something minor on the side of the road slows down thousands of people. I welcome it. We're nowhere near getting the old style cars regulated out of existence but if they were I would be completely happy with a racing go kart for my driving kicks, much more pure anyways.

 

Vertigogo, I guess we will just have to agree to disagree, because you are obviously far more trusting of the computer technology and the SPIN that comes out of Silicon Valley than I am!

We are being told that out of the 70 some “mishaps” (they don’t even call them accidents) that occurred while testing a fleet of slightly more than 300 autonomous vehicles, “ALL” of the so called mishaps were due to human error! I find that claim to be highly suspect; however, if true, these computer whiz kids must be the world’s worst drivers and these are the same folks that are tasked with programing “Real Life” driving scenarios into these cars.

I applaud these techno-nerds for the ability to develop such technology; however, “Just Because It Can Be Done….Doesn‘t Automatically Make It A Good Idea”! As I stated in a previous post….I believe that it is impossible to program solutions to all of the millions of driving scenarios that take place on our roads each and every day. I just don’t buy into the hype that a computer can drive a car safer then I can. The only way…”THE ONLY WAY” I can see computer driven cars being safer, is if EVERY car on the road is a computer driven car…and that’s the rub and were the fear of big brother taking over comes in. I predict that the mix between self-driving cars and human driven cars is going to be a disaster.

Besides it just won’t be any fun….what happens when I shoot the bird at a slow moving autonomous vehicle…. what’s it going to do, wave the computer cursor at me? The whole driving experience just won’t be the same.

Jim

 

The tech is coming faster than most think possible.... But it will take decades for the majority of cars on the roads to even be partially autonomous....i say within 5 years every major auto maker will have a car that will be labeled as autonomous... But will certainly not be, jump in and tell Google where you want to go..... There are so many things that no one talks about... Parking at the grocery store, over congested metro streets, idiots changing their mind of where they are going to go in the middle of a scheduled route, and they need to turn around.... Simply pulling in a narrow drive way where you would like to hang one tire of your pickup truck off the concrete to clear another car...And there will forever be the reason that you will still need to control the car manually at times and then set the autocruise control for the times that it makes sense..

Plus Multi camera, and software failures are bound to at least strand passengers or even a small fender bender would be major news, and of course the lawsuits if a manufacturer claims its push button 100% autonomous cars .... Weather visibility during rain, night, snow, fog.... All these obstacles have to be proven for a decade in real use before the masses will convert....

Then you have the "you can have my car when you pull it from my cold dead hands" people like most of us here I presume...

 

"Car ownership will decrease in the future...."

It's following common sense too! Watch out! Cuz you can't stop stupid!

 

Trip, you presume correctly, at least as far as this “Car Guy” is concerned!

I agree with all of the autonomous car short comings that you cited and I throw a few more into the mix.


*Will the “so called” intuitive autonomous car going to be able to instinctively realize that the load on the flatbed truck you are passing is unstable and about to tumble into your lane?

*Will the autonomous car see a ball in the street and ask it’s self if a child is about dart into traffic to retrieve that ball?

*Will an autonomous car see a child’s shadow from behind a parked car and ask it’s self if there is child about to cross the street?

*Will an autonomous car position you alongside and in the blind spot of an 18 wheeler?

*Will an autonomous car position you alongside an 18 wheeler with a tire that appears to blow any second?

*Will the autonomous car be able to detect that kid in the car alongside of you is not paying attention because he/she is texting?

*Will the autonomous car be able to detect that the driver of the vehicle in front of you is drug/alcohol impaired?

*Will the autonomous car be able to determine that a passenger in yor car is having a medical emergency and that it imperative that change course and speed up?

*Will an autonomous car be able to determine that the “Gang Bangers” standing on the over pass are about to dump a refrigerator on to the expressway?

*While stopped at a stop light, will the autonomous car recognize that it should take evasive action because someone is attempting to car-jack you?

*Will the Google powered GPS be able to take you off-road?

*Will the autonomous car be able to respond to the millions of other driving scenarios that human drivers instinctively and safely reacts to on a daily basis?

I maintain that the answer to these question is a categorical NO, they will not!

Then there’s that 800 pound gorilla that has yet to be addressed…..”Legal Liability”. Tesla founder, Elon Musk is lobbing for “Liability Immunity” for manufactures of autonomous cars. The liability issue is going to be a huge legal nightmare and we as an automotive community need to get our heads out of the sand by constantly saying….”it’s not going to happen in my life time”!

Jim

 

The majority of the accidents involving autonomous cars have been caused either by error on the part of the driver of another car, or by the driver of the autonomous car taking control of the car. In the latter case, I think we can understand how it happens. Let's say you see some numbskull pull out in front of you. The car starts to take evasive action, but your instincts tell you to take over. Your reflexes are not as fast as those of the computer, and this conflict causes the accident to occur.

I just watched a video of a guy driving an autonomous car on a highway at about 40 mph when a jerk in the opposite direction lanes pulls a U-turn right in front of him. The car immediately braked and came to a safe stop, and the driver swears that if he had been in control of the car, he wouldn't have been able to stop in time. The video makes me believe that claim. I probably wouldn't have been able to stop.

*Will the “so called” intuitive autonomous car going to be able to instinctively realize that the load on the flatbed truck you are passing is unstable and about to tumble into your lane?

Probably not (for now), but it will safely brake the car once the obstacle becomes visible.

*Will the autonomous car see a ball in the street and ask it’s self if a child is about dart into traffic to retrieve that ball?

Yes, definitely.

*Will an autonomous car see a child’s shadow from behind a parked car and ask it’s self if there is child about to cross the street?

I'm not sure. Probably not right now.

*Will an autonomous car position you alongside and in the blind spot of an 18 wheeler?

Not if it has been programmed to avoid such situations, which seems likely.

*Will an autonomous car position you alongside an 18 wheeler with a tire that appears to blow any second?

I personally would be unable to detect that myself.

*Will the autonomous car be able to detect that kid in the car alongside of you is not paying attention because he/she is texting?

Probably not, but again, the car would take evasive action if that other car veered into my lane, faster than I could myself. And when I drive, I am looking ahead, not at the driver next to me.

*Will the autonomous car be able to detect that the driver of the vehicle in front of you is drug/alcohol impaired?

Yes, for sure. That's easy to program.

*Will the autonomous car be able to determine that a passenger in yor car is having a medical emergency and that it imperative that change course and speed up?

No, current versions would not.

*Will an autonomous car be able to determine that the “Gang Bangers” standing on the over pass are about to dump a refrigerator on to the expressway?

Nope, but by the time you see the refrigerator falling, it's too late for you anyway.

*While stopped at a stop light, will the autonomous car recognize that it should take evasive action because someone is attempting to car-jack you?

That's outside the scope of what an autonomous car does. It's still up to you in that case.

*Will the Google powered GPS be able to take you off-road?

I don't know, but again, that's not really the purpose of autonomous cars. I see no good reason for using the technology for that purpose.

*Will the autonomous car be able to respond to the millions of other driving scenarios that human drivers instinctively and safely reacts to on a daily basis?

Yes, only better.

Jim, you raise some great questions. It's obvious that you have given careful thought to this matter. But I'll remind you that no one has any current plans to make a car that cannot be manually driven. So in all of the above situations, you would still be free to intervene whenever you wanted. And no one says that autonomous cars will have a perfect record forever, just that they will be much better than the average driver, overall.

I'm like you; I love to drive, especially my Vette, but we don't need to fear losing that right. It will be a very long time before that happens, if it ever does.

 

LOL, you remind me of a quote from General Foch, Commander of Allied forces at end of WWI, "Airplanes are interesting toys, but of no military value." We all know how that turned out.

IMHO, there is 100% certainty that every single issue you raise (good ones, no doubt) will be solved at some point.

 

Yeah, but long after these congressman and senators have stripped you of YOUR guns, they'll have armed bodyguards and CCW permits for themselves and family.

You don't think the members of the Politburo of the Soviet Union stood in line for rations do you? That's the way we're going with us being the oppressed servants of the government.

 

With cars getting more and more expensive to buy and own, it seems logical that the business model of a "shared" autonomous vehicle is actually a viable business model. If the cost per mile is significantly less than owning a vehicle I can see a lot of people getting in board with this. It also resolves some of the inconveniences of mass transit (set schedules that may not line up with your schedule and having to get to a station or bus stop).

The government won't need to mandate anything. The market will simply take us there if it is more economically viable than what we do now.

 

When I make my Corvette automatic driven I want the program loaded in it to be driven by nine time Lemans winner Tom Kristensen. Then all I have to do is sit back and win every race!!
LOL