Originally Posted by Osem (Post 35916209)

Yes it is. We're heading towards a society in which we can be controlled very easily because all the things we need to be independent will be able to be controlled by our masters at the press of a button. Money, transportation, communication etc., there'll be nowhere to hide. How much better for the environment (i.e. easier for our glorious leaders) it would be if we could be treated almost like farm animals and allowed to go anywhere and do anything we want as long as our 'keepers' agree... :erm:

Originally Posted by Osem (Post 35916191)

No problem, your 'auto' car will just take you there and drop you off then head off to do whatever else it needs to do to save the planet. Of course you won't be able to leave your picnic or anything else in the car for later, you'll have to carry it all with you until it's time to summon the next 'auto' car to pick you up and take you home. Sounds wonderful doesn't it... :rolleyes:

Originally Posted by Damien (Post 35916164)

A bit beyond moving to electric, which I think will happen sooner than 2040, but I believe car ownership itself won't be around for long. Instead people will call self-driving cars and be assigned one from a fleet owned by Google/Apple/Uber etc which will complete their journey then zip off somewhere else. With these cars being active more than most cars are now the cost per trip could be far less than what we effectively pay now for ownership, fuel, maintenance and insurance.

The benefits are massive: Less space will be required for parking as we would have fewer cars and those not active could go to a remote place rather than near town centers etc.

It's much safer as these cars could go faster, react quicker and make fewer mistakes than humans do plus they could communicate with each other. Imagine all these cars being networked and able to make adjustments to their speed/mapping based on the load of other cars up ahead.

It would solve this problem of charging as you no longer worry about parking or re-fueling cars.

I think before too long it will seem crazy that humans spent large amounts of money to own cars which spent most of their time parked and were driven by humans with their slow reaction times and who used signals to communicate to each other about their intentions.

Originally Posted by TheDaddy (Post 35916803)

The big fly in the ointment of your vision is legal accountability, the likes of uber won't pay out when their cars kill and injure people, that's why they'll need a bum on a seat for the foreseeable future and there not as safe as people make out, when a driver less car was responsible for someone's death the CEO justified it as a tragedy but the car had done 250k miles without incident and the assembled press nodded at how impressive a feat that was without seemingly considering how many people they'd killed in their quarter of a million miles motoring.

Originally Posted by Damien (Post 35916226)

.

Yes things will not be the same. People will adjust. Humans have done pretty well so far.

Originally Posted by Chris (Post 35916808)

The safety record of the early decades of civil aviation springs to mind here. There were some horrific incidents involving large loss of life, on well known western airlines, at US and European airports. It was enough of a talking point to secure a movie franchise in the 1970s (Airport, and then a couple of spoofs, Airplane!). But the benefits and overall safety of the civil jet airliner far outweighed the risks, so they have continued, and the disasters have informed safety improvements so that these days*, the only places you really hear of plane crashes are with the poorly maintained fleets of developing countries.

*Human agency notwithstanding

Originally Posted by Damien (Post 35916226)

Well it does. There are so many exciting things about self-driving technology from the ability to reduce the cost of transport, freeing up land, reducing pollution and making it much safer. If you only focus on the worst elements then it is going to be awful but the benefits will easily outweigh the negatives.

Yes things will not be the same. People will adjust. Humans have done pretty well so far.

Originally Posted by Osem (Post 35916838)

You'll be having to more a lot more adjusting than me I reckon. We'll see how wonderful it feels when everywhere you go you have to wait for transport for each leg of the journey and carry all the stuff you need with you because the car's going to be needed elsewhere. I can live without that sort of change for the better thanks. ;)

Originally Posted by Paul M (Post 35916848)

No one knows how it will actually pan out, we will see.
Its all just speculation & guesswork atm, with a large dollop of hope that technology will improve.

Originally Posted by Damien (Post 35916845)

People will travel differently. You could also have cars that wait around for you if you request such a service, presumably less so in urban areas. I think the benefits outweigh that particular inconvenience.

Originally Posted by Mr K (Post 35916852)

Yes that's what my 1975 Beano said about 2017, we should all be in hover cars by now too. Ben Elton's 'Gridlock' is a much better prediction.

Originally Posted by Mr K (Post 35916852)

Yes that's what my 1975 Beano said about 2017