Vehicles of Tomorrow? 727
Human Factors Guy writes "We've seen here before car manufacturers putting more and more technology into cars, but what are the cars of tomorrow going to look like? Driver monitoring through head and eye tracking (which Volvo is already
implementing), Adaptive
Cruise Control systems, maybe even pedestrian recognition systems. With
cars becoming more like semi-intelligent robots every year, what do /. readers think will and won't make it?"
Nothing new (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Nothing new (Score:3)
So you're afraid the cars will all decide to aim for you now? I think you watched The Matrix and I, Robot a few too many times.
Besides, Just because they have 4 wheels (which happens to be incredibly stable - hence the reason they stick with it) and some doors (how else do you expect to get into and out of the damned thing?) doesn't mean that there can't be more innovation and radical ideas.
Re:Nothing new (Score:3, Insightful)
BTW in most cases killing someone with a car gets no jail time unless there was drunk driving, street racing, or in those rare cases, evidence of a murder conspiracy, like you plan
Re:Nothing new (Score:5, Interesting)
It will have pedals [pedalcar.net].
Seriously, decades ago pedal cars, not toys, were sold widely in Spain. They could easily average 25 mph and if you didn't have to go long distances (over 10 miles) were reasonable. Problem with many people is they're lazy and they want to take all their crap all over the place with them. There was even a design in the early 60's or late 50's of the car of tomorrow in Popular Science, which carried a spare car for zipping around in away from the collosal family mover (which actually puts the Hummer to shame.)
Re:Nothing new (Score:3, Informative)
Problem with many people is they're lazy and they want to take all their crap all over the place with them.
I would think the bigger problem would be that speed limitation - even in small towns, the lowest the speed limit normally gets outside school zones is 30-35 mph.
Re:Nothing new (Score:3, Insightful)
Actually, in Metairie, LA (and from what I can tell, most of Jefferson Parish, which includes the majority of the area surrounding Orleans parish (read, New Orleans)), speed limits in most residential areas are 20 mph on non-divided streets. It can be kind of frustrating some times, but the low speed limit is appreciated when you live here. Sti
Re:Nothing new (Score:3, Funny)
On wanting comfort (Score:4, Insightful)
1) Destroying the ecosystem
2) Unnecessarily causing huge wars over scarce resources
3) Setting up an economy based on a non-renewable resource which is doomed to crash
then I'm all in favor of it. However, using fossil fuels to go everywhere is a short-sighted solution to an problem that can be solved without causing any of the problems like the three above.
So, yeah. If you don't wanna occasionally ride a bike or pedal a car, even though it's better for everyone on the entire planet, then you are lazy as well as selfish.
Re:On wanting comfort (Score:3, Insightful)
I agree, but I don't believe returning to human-powered transportation is either realistic *or* the best we can do. Just consider the problem of the handicapped for one, and the idea becomes a non-starter.
What is needed is a more efficient fuel source capable of the energy we need, not taking a giant 300-year step
Re:Nothing new (Score:3, Insightful)
I love comfort, ease and prosperity. I'm not entitled to get them by theft, including externalizing my costs.
Driving an SUV as a commuter vehicle means dumping crap in the air and water that other people have to breathe and drink; use of irreplacable petroleum resources (passing a heavy cost on to furture generations); increased CO2 emissions and the climate change implications thereo
Re:Nothing new (Score:5, Funny)
"When you feel a bump, stop."
At the time, he was referring to concrete parking separators, but I think it reflected a more general approach.
Autopilot - not for cars - for planes (Score:4, Interesting)
Autopilot for Airplanes is relatively easy.
And if airplanes didn't require pilots, they would be more economical than cars, which need to stop and start to avoid hitting each other, which need very expensive roads, which tend to hit pedestrians at a frightful pace, and tend to run into each other - largely because roads are sort of an everlasting game of chicken.
Per mile travelled, airplanes are much safer.
Autopilot would prevent them running into skyscrapers, and actually reduce the threat - who wants to hijack a commuter plane with 30 gallons of fuel and 12 people?
So we convert to electric golfcarts to drive us to and from the community airdrome.
And save gas by sharing a better ride on a point to point nonstop mass transit.
AIK
how about... trains? (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:how about... trains? (Score:3, Interesting)
The only thing i will a
Re:Autopilot - not for cars - for planes (Score:3, Insightful)
Okay, assume everyone converts to small autopiloted passenger aircraft.
What happens when the autopilot fails, and remember, it always will have SOME nonzero failure rate? Are you okay with a handful of miniplanes falling out of the sky and killing a dozen passengers at a time every year? Do you think anyone will want to ride the miniplane knowing there's nothing they can do to save their lives if something goes awry?
Part of the reason air travel is safer than car travel right now is that there are a lot
Re:Autopilot - not for cars - for planes (Score:4, Interesting)
As a former commercial pilot, I disagree.
With a few exceptions, autopilots in planes are about as useful as cruise control on the highway - they alleviate a lot of mindless work but reduce your ability to ramp up quickly to the state of the vehicle if a sudden emergency should occur.
Yes there are CAT III/Autoland units, approaches and airports, but they are few, far between, and dodgy enough that there isn't a pilot who's flown one who hasn't ghosted the controls throughout.
Removing the pilot, who makes $180 in salary during your average 4 hour hop, would be INSANE considering he or she is roughly the cost of two senior flight attendants, or about 1/67th what the fuel costs for that flight.
It isn't a video game up there. You take out the humans and you're dead, my friend.
Oh, and those little commuters carry closer to 450 gallons of fuel, not 30.
Nothing new, except... (Score:3, Interesting)
As for all this fancy stuff that will improve safety, well I doubt it will really have a huge benefit. People tend to drive to a certain risk level. If it feels dangerous, then they drive slower and more carefully; if it feels safe they drive faster and more carelessly. If you pack the car with "feel safe" stuff t
Automatic Traffic Law Enforcement (Score:5, Informative)
Want to drive too fast - sorry, the car won't allow you.
Want to park where you shouldn't - the automatically request a parking ticket for you.
The pieces for this total traffic control are already here today. A few examples:
We already have black boxes for cars. Those will see wide adoptions as soon as the insurance companies give rebates for having them installed. For them it makes sense, as it provides better data about accidents. No more fibbing how fast you were.
We already have active on-board-units toll-collection for highway and automatic verification of the box is present. At the moment, it's only for trucks on highways here in Austria, but the system is still young.
We already have working number plate scanner which tag entry ond exit time of cars on a road section and generates automatically speeding tickets if the average speed is too high.
A lot of cars already have GPS navigation to know where they are. Some of those have online updates for traffic jams and other up-to-date news. I can imagine some of them even can tell you today if you're driving too fast.
The engine-management software of all sports cars in Europe won't allow you to exceed 250 km/h, even if the car could.
Tamper-prevention software is in wide use and mostly works if used together with verification. Think about the XBox.
Now put all those ingredients in a big bowl, add a healthy dose of total-control-freaks in burocracies, bake for 10 years with insurance and motor-tax incentives and you get self-enforcing traffic laws.
The car will know where it is and what the speed limits are. The car will make sure for you, that you stay a good citizen via the motor management. The car will know how big the distance to the front car is and will make sure you keep a healthy distance.
Now why not rip the little dictator out of your car? Your car will have to identify itself to the autorities for toll collection on the most travelled roads. While doing that, it's very easy to verify that an untampered control-unit works in the car. If not, they have your license plate from the traffic camera.
All in all, for most purposes it won't be possible to escape. Due to the numerous checkpoints, the recognition-rate doesn't even have to be perfect. 80 to 90 percent is good enough.
Why develop auto-pilots if it's so easy to make the life of the drivers miserable.
Re:Nothing new (Score:3)
I disagree, here [dodge.com] is a great one-seat commuter 'car'.
Re:Nothing new (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Nothing new (Score:3, Insightful)
Remove the driver. (Score:5, Insightful)
But if cars can drive themselves it doesn't really make sense that everyone has one, after all, it isn't really a good use of resources to have a car or three sitting idle in office/mall garages for an individual when it can be off transporting your children to school and your wife to the shops or her own job. There's no longer a need for a 3 car family, you simply call the car and tell it when and where you want to be picked up. Why spend 80 grand on multiple cars when you can spend 30 grand on one car and the other 50 on something more enjoyable?
But wait, we can take this a step further, why limit it just to private transport, the same applies to public transport. Why own a car at all when you can simply call an autotaxi and it'll pick you up when and where you want and deliver you when and where you want. Instead of investing 80 grand in hardware which depreciates by 30% the second it rolls out of the showroom and then continues to cost you 2 grand a year in fuel, servicing and insurance. Simply call an autocab.
Course there's still the problem of traffic, just because most of the cars are driven automatically doesn't reduce the numbers on the road and there are still going to be normally driven cars on the road so you're still going to get stuck in traffic jams during rush hour. You could take the public autotaxis off the road and put them on separate raised "roads" which allows full computer control and which bypass the normal roads, thereby bypassing the traffic jams.
e.g.
http://www.skywebexpress.com/
and
http://www.atsltd.co.uk/
and
http://www.yorkprt.com/
and
http://www.austrans.com/
The concept is called Personal Rapid Transit and is basically a packet based mass transit system. It's perfectly possible to implement today.
More info:
http://faculty.washington.edu/~jbs/itrans/
http://www.cprt.org/
http://www.acprt.org/
Clarification of the term 'driving' (Score:3, Insightful)
This [wrc.com] is [wrc.com] driving. [wrc.com]
Re:Remove the driver. (Score:3, Interesting)
2) You press the reject/service button, it goes off to get cleaned and you get another.
3) PRT will have cabs waiting for you at the stations (there's a novel thought, public transport waiting for you, not the other way round). When really busy during rush hour, 90% of journeys will have a cab waiting, in 98% of cases a called cab will arrive within 1 min and 99.9% a cab will arrive with
Re:Nothing new (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Nothing new (Score:3, Interesting)
the best one (Score:5, Funny)
but they keep coming up with great improvements on the awesome machine.
Re:the best one (Score:4, Informative)
the 8 footer works best for this.
it's also pretty easy to rent a truck- if absolutely neccessary.
I thought your life force was extinguished! (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:I thought your life force was extinguished! (Score:3, Insightful)
What's to stop you from sucking it into your lungs while in it's liquid state or being able to breath after the foam has hardened? The nice thing about airbags is they deflate right away or you would probably suffocate.
HHGG refrence (Score:4, Funny)
pedestrian recognition systems (Score:5, Funny)
Cheaters... (Score:2)
What fun is that?
For crying out loud... (Score:5, Funny)
Close (Score:5, Funny)
Two Words... (Score:2, Funny)
Re:One Word... (Score:3, Funny)
My wish (Score:5, Funny)
Re:My wish (Score:5, Funny)
stop RED turn signals...! (Score:3)
Use YELLOW for turn signals. It is highly visible, and stands out. So I don't have to guess if you are tapping the brake or trying to come into my lane.
Does any body knows why auto makers do these RED turn signals? I honestly don't.
My #1 Wish for Tomorrow's Cars: (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:My #1 Wish for Tomorrow's Cars: (Score:4, Insightful)
Internal combustion engines are powerful and efficient. The basic concept has been refined so much that a car powered by one can usually run over 100000 miles with only occasional routine maintainence.
My point is not that there are no problems with the Internal Combustion Engine, only that it will be very difficult to find a replacement that is actually superior.
Re:My #1 Wish for Tomorrow's Cars: (Score:4, Interesting)
The most efficient internal combustion engine in the world that I know of is >50% efficient.
The most efficient gasoline IC engine I know of is that in the Prius, which tops out at around 36%, and on average exceeds 30%
Re:My #1 Wish for Tomorrow's Cars: (Score:4, Informative)
It seems like about once a year, I read a report somewhere like PopSci that someone's finally figured out how to make the concept workable for commercial purposes - even though Stirling engines were used very successfully in rural areas in the 1800s!. Yet somehow, every startup just disappears off the face of the earth afterwards for no apparent reason. Coincidence... or conspiracy?
Future is here now... (Score:5, Informative)
I have used this a lot while driving on long trips and I totally love it. It takes a bit getting used to letting the car do the braking, but once you get used to it, you wonder what you ever did without it before.
So to answer your question, what will cars of the future look like, I would say the Infiniti FX35 is a good start...
Re:Future is here now... (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Future is here now... (Score:5, Insightful)
It's especially useful during my commute where I'll end up stuck behind some grandma on a 3 mile road who can't keep a constant speed. I just set it on smart cruise and I find I get less aggravated at following someone who can't keep a constant 40mph.
And while it won't brake to a stop, it will hit the brakes pretty hard and take you down to around 25mph. All the while it's beeping like crazy and you should have enough time to react since it's already started the braking process for you.
Re:Future is here now... (Score:3, Informative)
I know you don't believe me (it's not really ncessary to appreciate this post though), but I have this in my Ferrari 360 Modena and at first, this technology appeared to suck and didn't work well (too much clutch slipping, jerky starts, etc.). Then they upgraded the computer to a newer version and it works a lot better. Similar technology can now be found in more consumer friendly cars.
An
The world isn't flat (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Future is here now... (Score:3, Insightful)
You are EXACTLY the right type of driver for this gadget- the car starts slowing down, you change lanes, and as soon as you do, the car returns to the pre-programmed speed. Standard defensive driving dictates that you speed up while changing lanes- and this de
a simple one (Score:2)
The landmaster (Score:3, Informative)
What should, but won't, make it (Score:5, Interesting)
Honestly, the technology exists right now to automatically drive my car along a freeway. I could probably set this up today with a few thousand dollars in hardware and a lot of code. Self-driving car projects are incredibly expensive and not yet fully reliable because they try to use them in the city. This is an extremely difficult environment to deal with.
But a freeway is perfect. All you need are cameras to watch the lines on the road, radar (or more cameras) to watch for other vehicles and objects in the road, servos to actuate the car's controls and a computer to run it all. I've actually thought about designing such a system for my RV, since long trips in that thing are very taxing. I'd still have to sit in the driver's seat and keep an eye on things, but that's infinitely less stressful than the driving itself.
But this will never be a mainstream product in our society. Too many lawyers and other disinterested parties (such as insurance companies). We'll have flying cars before you can go down and buy a self-freeway-driving module.
Re:What should, but won't, make it (Score:5, Funny)
You should do it. I suggest naming it the Computerized Road Automated Steering Helpbot.
Re:What should, but won't, make it (Score:3, Informative)
This is a seasonal solution (Score:3, Interesting)
Cel phone features (Score:5, Funny)
Last summer, I saw a guy talking on a cel phone while riding a bike. What call is so bloody important that you can't pull over or take it later?
-paul
Re:Cel phone features (Score:3, Interesting)
This summer i travelled on a stretch of road in NJ that crosses the state exactly at the mid point, from Trenton to Belmar. Route 195.
Without fail, on every trip I made I saw at least one person reading while driving. Either reports, newspapers, or even books. It is a very straight, uninteresting stretch of highway, but reading. Not just glancing down for a second to check something, but full on, enveloped reading.
No flying cars! (Score:2, Funny)
Cheaper (Score:2, Interesting)
I for one.. (Score:4, Funny)
I for one want to welcome our new semi-intelligent robot car overlords...
(still beats the less than intelligent polititans..
obligatory ... (Score:2)
But we don't need flying cars, because we have the Internet. (and to really bastardize the comemrcials together) How many Libraries of Congress per second can your technology handle?
Personally, I'd prefer something akin to Minority Report, but so that I can escape the car if I want to (ie, none of this gov'mint lockdown crap). It would be awesome to not need to worry about where I'm driving or that
Re:obligatory ... (Score:5, Funny)
They are already in robot cars. You need to upgrade.
once we're past the gimmicks... (Score:4, Interesting)
CB$#%^&*!
Community Cars (Score:5, Interesting)
Need a ride? Walk to the closest community car and touch the handle. The door opens, seats/mirrors/radio/temperature adjusts to your preferences and away you go.
At your destination, you get out of the car. Your account is debited the appropriate fare and you... just... walk... away (and into the next car you need).
Re:Community Cars (Score:5, Insightful)
I've seen how people treat public parks, public restrooms, public sidewalks, and public transportation.
What would happen here is that you walk up to the car, hear the door unlock so you can get in, and find out that somebody broke the rearview trying to manually adjust a little too far. The seat doesn't adjust, because someone else poured coffee into the seat and shorted out the servos. The radio display is cracked, and has chewing gum stuck to it. But you won't need to adjust the radio, but the someone has done you the favor of blowing out the cones on the car speakers. You might have one side mirror, but the climate control will be stuck on 'heat'. In July.
Did I mention that the seat is sticky because the nimrod who spilled their drink into it didn't clean it up? Or that someone else has been scrawling dirty limericks on the dashboards, and phone numbers with exhortations of a 'good time' to be had? But be glad you didn't get the Com-U-Car next to it, because you saw the guy get out, and it looked like he'd thrown up in the passenger seat.
All things considered, I think I'd rather the bus, taxi, or just drive my own. At least my own car doesn't have any odors I don't already know about.
Re:Community Cars (Score:3, Interesting)
Often I guess people feel a responsibility to take care of shared property, as long as they don't take it for granted.
Peak Oil means engine changes (Score:3, Informative)
I don't know how much the car itself will change from a design sense (if that's what is meant by 'look like'), and I'm not sure how much the act of driving a car will change.
It does seem that there is a trend toward all these 'driver aid' tools, like GPS systems and ubiquitous Big Brother-like organizations that can control your car and track you. I do think, therefore, that the act of driving is going to be considerably less free, as an experience.
The real change will be under the hood, as Peak Oil [peakoil.org] passes, and the petroleum supplies begin to dwindle rather than grow (there are currently zero large oil fields set to come online in 2008, and only one in 2007, so it might be here faster than we think). I'd expect, therefore, that cars will become a luxury commodity once again, as the cost of powering them starts to become prohibitively expensive.
As this happens, there will likely be another trend in the 2010s similar to the 1980s, when there was a premium placed on economy, rather than size, because if the price of gas balloons in the 2010s to something more like $5-$7 a gallon, as some in the oil industry predict, it means saving a 10 MPG increase in economy can make a dig difference to the TCO of an automobile.
Just one small request (Score:5, Insightful)
Driving is a learned exercise that requires experience to become good at. The introduction of things like traction control, and anti-lock braking systems have caused much of the driving public to ignore time-tested techniques for maintaining control over a vehicle.
Case in point: A cousin of mine was recently endowed with a driver's license. However, nobody thought it necessary to tell him how in certain vehicles under certain conditions, pumping the brake pedal is necessary to stop. They assumed anything he drove would have anti-lock brakes.
Things like smart cruise control are going to make us become complacent about things like safe following distances and paying attention to the conditions ahead of the vehicle you are following.
Until we're ready to turn over 100% control to the robots (which shouldn't happen for a very long time), please make vehicles safer by encouraging driver experience, not by doing things for him/her.
Re:Just one small request (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Just one small request (Score:3, Insightful)
He may have learned about "threshold braking" instead. That was what was taught when I took defensive driving many years ago (before ABS). The idea is to ease up on the brakes slightly when the wheels start to lock, and then hold the brake at that threshold. If done right, this will stop
Re:Just one small request (Score:5, Insightful)
The trick is to leave plenty of room between you and the car in front of you. It might also help if you don't drive that much faster than the posted speed limit. In this way if the car in front of you suddenly stops you have plenty of time to react and to stop the car. I realize that this may burn a few precious seconds from your life but in the end it may allow you to live longer.
I am just saying that in normal driving (even in rush hour traffic) if you have to slam the brakes hard enough to get them to lock more than a few time per year maybe the problem isn't with the car, or with other drivers, maybe the problem is with you!
Re:Just one small request (Score:3, Informative)
However, in Michigan, we get nasty ice crap on the roads.
Here, this better explains it:
http://media.ebaumsworld.com/index.php?e=fun_on
drivers wanted (Score:5, Funny)
1976 TVR 2500M (Score:3, Insightful)
Anti-lock brakes
Air bags
Crumple zones
emmissions controls (well, beyond a o2 sensor anyway)
5 mph bumpers
fuel injection
What it DOES have is the following:
300 RWD HP
Manual Transmission
Limited Production
Triple Weber Carbs (a conversion from the original dual Strombergs)
Straight pipes
LOTS of sex appeal
IMO this is what the world needs more of, loud fast *sexy* cars. Down with Toyota Echos!
(note, for those of you who do not get this post, I do drive this car in reality, but the post is for humor)
What's coming (Score:5, Interesting)
Proper starting. Automobile engines are started all wrong. Cranking, compression, fuel, and spark all start at the same time. Oil pressure comes later. As a result, half of engine wear occurs during start. Many big engines (locomotives, marine diesels, some big tractors) are started properly - oil pressure first, then a few turns with compression released to oil up the cylinders, and finally combustion starts. Wear is much reduced.
Once 42-volt electrical systems become popular, and valve control goes electrical, we may see electric booster oil pumps and valve actuators. Once you can crank the engine with compression off and oil pressure up, you need a much smaller starting motor. The starting motor and alternator can then be combined.
Re:What's coming (Score:5, Insightful)
This will never happen for the same reason that proper corrosion protection will never happen. There has to be a reason to make you buy a new car when you get to the end of your five year loan.
Holy grails of car technology. (Score:4, Interesting)
A lot of progress has been made on this over the past couple of decades, and we have a couple more decades of progress to go before it's safe enough to use in the real world, but as soon as an autopilot is invented that drives better than the average human (especially under emergency conditions), there will be a large insurance break for using it. Shortly after this it will become the norm.
My money's on methanol or methane, as both can be stored as liquids (methanol more easily), and methanol can be burned in a conventional engine with a bit of tweaking (making the switch from internal combustion to electric engines much more graceful). You even have interesting hybrid options available, like an electric car with a gas turbine burning methane (or propane, which you can fill up with at gas stations now, making the switchover to _methane_ easier). Methane and methanol can both be synthesized directly from water, CO2, and electricity, meaning that they're suitable fuels for an electric vehicle infrastructure after fossil fuel supplies of them run out (and after we need more than we can get by reclaiming biological waste). We have lots of experience with moving hydrocarbon gases and volatile liquids around, so the transport infrastructure's already here. Methane and methanol have nowhere *near* the storage and handling problems hydrogen has.
It'll be interesting to see when the first point happens (I think it's pretty inevitable that it's going to). A methanol (or a methane) fuel system might or might not happen. If compact energy storage and vehicle efficiency get good enough, a direct electric scheme might work. However, most non-chemical methods of electric storage don't have high enough theoretical densities (even with nanotube-reinforced flywheels and induction rings), and a purely electric vehicle infrastructure is a lot harder to phase in gracefully. Alternatively, we might just keep improving our ability to harvest lower-grade and less-accessible hydrocarbon deposits, and push the fossil fuel problem far enough off that by the time the crunch hits, technology will be different enough to drastically alter the space of possible solutions.
Definitely interesting times ahead.
With so many lawyers in this country... (Score:3, Funny)
Diesel Engines (Score:3, Interesting)
Unfortunately, emission standards are only going to get more strict in the coming years so unless the clean air technologies in diesels can keep up, we may not see many options on the market.
Sunglare control (Score:5, Interesting)
Put a liquid crystal display coating over the windshield that can selectively darken specific parts of it. Have a sensor outside the car facing forward that notes any super bright light sources like the sun or headlights at night. It also tracks where the face of the driver is and, if it determines a glare situation is occurring, does the geometry to find out exactly what part of the windshield is between their head and the light source and applies a tint at that one place. The person could still see that the light source was present, but it wouldn't blind them.
Try driving west in the evening as the sun is setting, and something like this starts to look pretty good.
Better Instruments. (Score:3, Insightful)
Small List (Score:4, Interesting)
-Better sound systems
-Headlights that are bright but dont blind oncoming traffic
-Can run past 100,000 miles without major repairs
-Less rusting, even on newer cars
-And finally, the ability to work on them without the need for 3 different diagnostic machines that cost 10 grand each!
What's the point... (Score:3, Funny)
Why bother asking what the vehicles of the future are going to look like; we still don't have the vehicles of yesterday's future!
Like trees (Score:4, Funny)
Larger Spoilers (Score:5, Funny)
add to that list:
brighter neon
louder steros
larger exhaust pipes
louder exhaust pipes
a wider range of stickers
bigger uglier rims... spinners and lights were a good start, but how about embedded video screens, or ultrashiny chrome that blinds other drivers?
more places to stick useless video screens (see above)
brighter, more obnoxious colors
larger body kits, with more of that panel-gap appearance that looks so good
did i miss anything?
Drive by wire (Score:5, Informative)
Head and eye tracking (Score:4, Funny)
Smart Cars More Quickly Declared "Totaled" (Score:4, Interesting)
So as we contemplate even smarter cars with even more electronics installed, even relatively minor accidents might result in a car being declared "totaled" and thereby increase insurance costs overall. Ironically, it may not be the purchase cost of the electronics that eventually constrains the smart-car market (particularly since smart electronics seem to get cheaper all the time), but rather the insurance considerations instead!
Traffic jam solutions (Score:5, Interesting)
The idea is to get rid of the personal repulsion properties of the drivers.
What about implementing separation techniques (much like IFR flying) that would permit vehicles, first in specialty lanes and then later on the road at alrge, to operate safely at predetermined distances.
Together with reversible-direction lanes, we could save many of the billions of hours [citymayors.com] (how many human lifetimes is that) wasted sitting in traffic each year.
Re:Traffic jam solutions (Score:3, Informative)
The solution that I think about EVERY SINGLE WORKING DAY, is simple:
Paint the letters "PASSING LANE ONLY" on the far left lane.
Have the local PD issue tickets for people "hanging out" in the far left lane or going to slowly. Europe has this down to an art and few things are as exhilarating as driving on the autobahn (or other major highways there). The net result of a passing-only lane
Tomorrow's Cars: (Score:3, Insightful)
Realistically, your next car should be your feet or a bicycle. Walk to get your groceries. Bike to work. Get fitter. Live longer. Pollute less. Get big things delivered. Talk to your neighbours. Smile at strangers.
Re:Tomorrow's Cars: (Score:4, Insightful)
My view's not optimistic; it's pragmatistic. It requires people to make serious sacrifices and lifestyle changes. It means a redesign of communities so you can live near your work and shop where you live. I don't think people are ready for the changes or willing to make the sacrifices required.
Bus Captain and the Vehicles of Tomorrow! (Score:3, Funny)
On another note, check out the possible 25th anniversary DeLorean! [delorean.com]
Fully automatic vehicles - PRT (Score:3, Informative)
e.g.
http://www.cprt.org/
Not that PRT will make the car obsolete, but it will reduce the need for it as day to day transport leaving it mainly as a pleasure vehicle.
Standardization? (Score:3, Interesting)
I.E. Upgrade engine? Upgrade Headlights? Buy new body? Etc.
Also why don't they just make the speed lane on highways 130 kmph (faster as cars become faster) and force drivers to stay at that EXACT speed. then there will be no bunching etc. If your car cannot do that deal with regular traffic.
I'd also like to see a slowdown in car safety regulation upgrades, it's the number one reason consumers cannot stick with older model cars and designing new ones is the reason for the cost increases, the safety benefits are minimal in each new model upgrade, I'd like to see car weight maximized at approx. 750pd. Then they will be a smaller threat to pedestrians and each other.
Fallout (Score:3, Insightful)
Simple vehicles weigh less, last longer, and have greater cool factor. Seriously, my favorite transportation is the mostly 1979 Harley Sportster I built with my own two hands. It has 3 circuits, a headlight, a breaklight, and an ignition coil.
Re:no change (Score:3, Funny)
I might be interested. Is there a water bed and a mirror ball in the back?
Re:No pollution and no pertol (Score:4, Interesting)
Zero pollution and no petrol is not very realistic.
What I would like to see is a car that can "scale". By this, I mean that a car for 99.9% of its use is to transport one person and little to no extra payload. It would be cool to have a car that was about the size of an Insight, but it could expand with an extra motor and space to the size of an SUV. Yeah, I said SUV on slashdot in a positive context, so mod me down now.
It would be cool if this car had expandable, temporary compartments for payloads like groceries, and maybe even come with something like one of those roof luggage carriers.
It kills me that so many people buy a big car to drive back and forth to work so that they can have the big car the couple of times a year that they need it. I fall into this category, but my car is 13 years old, has over 180,000 miles on it, and it was free, and it works.
Re:Cars to Tomorrow are cars of Yesteryear (Score:3, Funny)
Actually, we already tried disposable cars, and they failed miserably. Anybody else remember these cars [www.inet.hr]?