Your next vehicle might be the last one you (can) buy

DieselFumes

2015 4x4 2500 170 Crew
Posting this in "The Competition" because it's competition to all privately owned vehicles.

Bob Lutz (who was head of product development at GM, also at Ford, Chrysler, BMW, Opel) just wrote an opinion piece about the future of transportation for Automotive News.

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.

On the freeway, it will merge seamlessly into a stream of other modules traveling at 120, 150 mph. The speed doesn't matter. You have a blending of rail-type with individual transportation.
Nothing particularly new there, except that he goes into the implications for the industry, for individuals, and for communities.

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.
And this change won't be driven by personal preference, but rather by big players.

we don't need public acceptance of autonomous vehicles at first. All we need is acceptance by the big fleets: Uber, Lyft, FedEx, UPS, the U.S. Postal Service, utility companies, delivery services. Amazon will probably buy a slew of them. These fleet owners will account for several million vehicles a year. Every few months they will order 100,000 low-end modules, 100,000 medium and 100,000 high-end. The low-cost provider that delivers the specification will get the business.
And it's the end of manufacturer differentiation.

But the performance will be the same for all because nobody will be passing anybody else on the highway. That is the death knell for companies such as BMW, Mercedes-Benz and Audi. That kind of performance is not going to count anymore.
It's a short and interesting read.
 

YOLOMOG

2016 170" 4x4
As a software developer, the hype about autonomous cars reminds me of the hype about tablet computers in 1994. Touchscreen devices were going to be huge, but their general availability was off by at least 15 years. One of the great things about cloud computing is that any server can fail and be easily replaced, often automatically through monitoring software. That can't be said for a car driving you to a location. A car is not a virtual machine -- it is a physical piece of hardware that can get into accidents (often through the fault of other vehicles) and needs to avoid running out of battery.

Near term, one question is whether a fully electric van would be a suitable campervan replacement for a Diesel Sprinter. The range is often too short (around 100 miles) and the energy density for even Lithium batteries is a fraction of Diesel if you need to burn it for heat in the winter with an Espar heater. After having driven my Sprinter to Alaska, I wouldn't want to do that with an electric vehicle and it would be laughable to imagine what an autonomous vehicle would do trying to navigate the construction on the Alcan.

The car industry is in for a lot of change but the campervan conversion market is a tiny piece and will be an edge case for most of the autonomous vehicle technology.
 

ECU

2006 T1n 118 Sprinter
BMW, Mercedes-Benz and Audi... gas stations, tire stores, auto parts, bus and light rail systems, auto insurance, car toys, distribution centers.
 

surlyoldbill

Well-known member
get an old classic hobby car NOW. Also, I think it will be many decades before there is universal ban on private ownership of vehicles. There may be certain ROADS when manually driving is prohibited (driverless cars only) in the very near future, though.
 

avanti

2022 Ford Transit 3500
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Graphite Dave

Dave Orton
get an old classic hobby car NOW. Also, I think it will be many decades before there is universal ban on private ownership of vehicles. There may be certain ROADS when manually driving is prohibited (driverless cars only) in the very near future, though.
Agree. Instead of old classic I bought a new manual transmission 2017 Porsche Boxster. Was afraid a manual transmission car would not be available in the near future so bought one now. At my age I suspect I have the rest of my driving days covered with a real car. Porsche has too many high tech features and nannies to think for you. Older cars are much simpler and more desirable in that regard.

Autonomous vehicles are for people that just want to get from point A to point B. I enjoy driving too much to accept that method. Boring. Why go anywhere if you can not drive?
 

avanti

2022 Ford Transit 3500
Autonomous vehicles are for people that just want to get from point A to point B. I enjoy driving too much to accept that method. Boring. Why go anywhere if you can not drive?
Don't worry. The VR driving simulation games will soon be indistinguishable from reality. You could even install one in your self-driving car. :thumbup:
 

autostaretx

Erratic Member
Ahhh... i remember going to an auto show in 1958 where they featured the GM Firebird II family car.

FirebirdII.jpg

Among its features (requiring cooperating infrastructure) was the capability to (wirelessly) connect to a wire-guided highway.
You'd drive yourself from home to freeway (using a twistable joystick instead of a steering wheel... (now found in aircraft... the Airbus side-stick)), then talk to people in a "control tower" who'd take your destination and feed it into the system. For the rest of the highway portion, it was an externally-controlled, self-driving car. You'd take over manual control as you left the freeway.

--dick :popcorn:
p.s. of course, we all remember:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tTq6Tofmo7E

Well... there's been an update:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=37waZeR4isc
 

Midwestdrifter

Engineer In Residence
Eh, mostly hype at this point. The investment required to create such an infrastructure is beyond astonishing.

Too much of the world, the USA included, is very rural and low population density.

In places where the population density is high enough to make this kind of thing a necessity (and economically viable) the better option is mass transit via train, Automated bus, and subway systems.

Now, private car ownership? That will start dropping off fairly quickly in many areas. Take a look at Singapore. Car sharing, automated driving, etc will drop this off. It makes perfect sense. Most of the time your car just sits, doing nothing but taking up space. If we want to have a first world standard of living for more humans, we will need to more efficiently utilize our resources. One way is to maximize usage of high energy/complexity devices (like cars).

The real change will happen when fossil fuels become priced at their true cost. Currently they are sold at their extraction and refinement cost. NOT their replacement and environmental cost. What does it cost to make fuel when you can't just pump the raw material out of the ground? The answer, a hell of a lot more.

Once that happens, unless renewables have gotten crazy cheap, we will see a huge shift towards efficient shared/managed public/semipublic transit. The driver? Cost. In the short term people can be trusted to do whats in their best financial interest to a certain degree.
 
I found it interesting that the Google ad at the top of the page when I was reading this thread was for Ram Trucks. The ad said "Ram Trucks, Featuring the largest available touch screen radio in its class". Does anyone else remember when Dodge truck commercials showed a truck being dropped from a crane?

I agree with all of you that have said that the major changes in our transportation system are still many years away. However, we cannot ignore the fact that the automotive industry has changed dramatically in the last few years. We are now marketing vehicles for their infotainment systems and electronic gadgetry. That's what the market currently wants. It's not a far stretch to think that the complete automation of the driving experience could be next.
 

surlyoldbill

Well-known member
for 95% of people, having a "car on demand" like self driving Uber, is perfectly fine. Assuming they arrive within 5-10 minutes every time. Regular jack offs that go work at a McJob in an McOffice, shop at a McMall, and go home to stare at TV/computer. No need to personally own a vehicle if there is a ride available consistently. People in rural areas or who need a vehicle as part of their work would not be serviced well by a fleet of self driving cars.

The concept of a fully inclusive lease, where the owner of the vehicle pays for the insurance and maintenance, and you as the lessee just pays for fuel, doesn't sound too bad. In fact, that sounds really good for urban/suburban people who don't want to have to worry about breakdowns or maintenance. But again, people who need a truck to take hay to the cows or lumber to the jobsite would probably not use this type of service.

And there are the car share programs that have popped up here and there, where you subscribe as a member, and pay by the mile/hour for your use of the vehicles. Again, not too bad for city people. No need to personally own a vehicle.

I don't know if any of us will live long enough to see personal ownership of vehicles universally banned. Even though inclusive leases and car share and self driving transport may become the norm in urban areas, there would still be a demand and need for personally owned vehicles in a large part of the country (lower population but MUCH larger area). Perhaps the inclusive leases would become so financially attractive that no one would want to BUY a car anymore. As the "Pay By Mile" car registration becomes more entrenched (they are trying it in Oregon; when you register your car the fee is based on how many miles you drive per year, not a flat rate), the cost of owning may be more than the cost of leasing.

In the end, it's all about the bottom line.
 

Dematerial

2003 T1N 2500 158 "Theseus"
Funny to me how the conversation has shifted from restricting non self driving cars (will certainly happen) to a bans on private ownership (will never happen). There will be plenty of privately owned self driving cars. The point is that privately owned self driving cars are more practical and cost effective than privately owned human driven cars.

I'm really looking forward to my privately owned self driving vehicles. I can just imagine hopping into my autonomous Sprinter, making dinner, watching a movie, going to bed, and waking up at my destination.
 

flman

Roadrunner, Genius of Birds ALWAYS WINS! NO FAILS!
How are service companies going to get around this will never happen any ways fairy tale?
 

220629

Well-known member
There's an App for that!

No need for a human to be in a completely autonomous vehicle. When you join the fleet program they give you an app that locates a logical selection and delivers a vehicle to where/when you need it. Something like the Arnold Schwarzenegger movie Total Recall with Johnny Cab.

Just hope that I'm not still bombing around in my T1N. By then it'll be a statistical certainty that I'll have an accident with your ride.

:cheers: vic
 

Geriakt

2017 View 24J
When robots are used for all manufacturing, a computer screen takes your order at Mac Ds, and automated cars drive you.....with anyone have a job? How will people make money to buy anything?
 

avanti

2022 Ford Transit 3500
When robots are used for all manufacturing, a computer screen takes your order at Mac Ds, and automated cars drive you.....with anyone have a job? How will people make money to buy anything?
Yeah, well that is the real question, isn't it?

Right-wingers are still worried about the 20th century problem of people not working hard enough and the "moral hazards" of the welfare state. Meanwhile, the real threat is wealth-distribution rather than wealth-creation, and folks not having enough to do. Better send your kids to school, and get used to socialism...
 

220629

Well-known member
Yeah, well that is the real question, isn't it?

Right-wingers are still worried about the 20th century problem of people not working hard enough and the "moral hazards" of the welfare state. Meanwhile, the real threat is wealth-distribution rather than wealth-creation, and folks not having enough to do. Better send your kids to school, and get used to socialism...
It's been covered already quite some time ago. I remember it from my Science Fiction Hall of Fame trilogy actually a 3 book set. Always stuck with me.

The Marching Morons
Cyril M. Kornbluth

Don't read the Wikipedia overview. Read the short story.

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/2300110.The_Marching_Morons

:cheers: vic
 
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90d

2006 2500 158"WB SHC
get an old classic hobby car NOW. Also, I think it will be many decades before there is universal ban on private ownership of vehicles. There may be certain ROADS when manually driving is prohibited (driverless cars only) in the very near future, though.
pre-2000: "Gotta pay your taxes someone has to pay for these roads we all drive on"
2000-2020: "Gotta pay your taxes and fees someone has to pay for these roads we all drive on"
2020-2040: "Gotta pay your taxes and fees...wait I can't drive on what road?"
2040 and beyond: 01100001 01101100 01101100 00100000 01111001 01101111 01110101 01110010 00100000 01100010 01100001 01110011 01100101 00100000 01100001 01110010 01100101 00100000 01100010 01100101 01101100 01101111 01101110 01100111 00100000 01110100 01101111 00100000 01110101 01110011
 
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