Link to Bob Lutz’s article, currently making waves in the automotive industry.
Bob Lutz a wise & respected man, with a history of being right! And the automotive future he wrote about seems plausible. But it also seems like the articles & movie scripts from the 50’s, that predicted flying cars by the year 2000. Here’s a couple things Lutz didn’t bring up in his autonomous future:
- The hard-headed will of the people. I could imagine this happening in metropolis cities across the world. But Americans love to drive. And we love the freedom that it gives us. You think Americans get edgy when you talk about gun control??? Try taking their cars. It’s true that the younger generations do not seem to love the automobile in the same way we do, but you would have filter 3-4 generations… before you could even put this on the table.
- History. Lutz talks about how GM is preparing for this new, rapidly changing future. This is the same GM that had to take a government bailout less than a decade ago, right?
- Our government. It takes our governments 10 years to build ‘a road’. Imagine what it will take to build/overhaul our entire road network for 100% autonomous vehicles. Lutz mentioned 120-150mph travel speeds, But for that to happen, every road would need to be paved to a quality of the Autobahn. Which brings up not only time, but cost. And maintenance. May as well rebuild the roads to support hover-cars at that point… which is something we’d actually want!
- Government again. How would police departments/cities generate revenue without speeding tickets, red light tickets, accident tickets, etc? It’s a minor detail, but perhaps a big roadblock to squashing the ‘autonomous’ plans for decades to come.
- The Scare. I honestly think all the scare & chatter & gossip surrounding ‘our autonomous future’… is going to be the exact reason it implodes. You’re making a good chunk of the American people realize & recognize what they DON’T want. You’re preparing them to resist it! Kind of like Y2K, all the over-hype predictions will be the cause of the fizzle.
Anyway…. just a couple thoughts I had while brushing my teeth this morning. I’m gonna go work on my car magazine now, while I still can.
