4 ms·

There are people driving 50 year old cars today back when those cars were utter trash brand new. Every time I read a new story about some horrible thing a coupl

There are people driving 50 year old cars today back when those cars were utter trash brand new. Every time I read a new story about some horrible thing a couple of engineering students were able to do to a "connected" car with a couple of lines of code and the right knowhow, I appreciate my old 300 even more. If every new car is connected, I'm not buying a new car. Simple as that.

Karunamon 10y ago
Eventually you won't have a choice. How I see this breaking down is that once the automation and connectivity tech has had a chance to be proven statistically safer, the insurance companies will move in. First, discounts for driving a fully automatic car. Smaller, then larger. Then, normal cars' insurance gets more expensive as the automatics proliferate. Eventually prohibitively so. Finally a break point is reached where the legislators see that allowing comparatively death-trap like normal cars on public roads is irresponsible, and they become banned. Car makers react by eventually ceasing production of manual drive cars by all but special request and for special uses.
- kardos 10y ago
  It could also play out that the risky poor drivers end up choosing self-driving cars and the low-risk drivers continue to drive as always. Although, a self-driving car would be convenient for overnight driving....
  - Karunamon 10y ago
    On a macro level, there is no such thing as a "low risk driver" when you're comparing a meatbag with all its imperfections against a chunk of silicon who never gets sick or tired, never overlooks the smallest detail, and is constantly rechecking its assumptions thousands of times per second. You could be the most attentive, conscientious driver in the entire world - you will eventually make a mistake, possibly a fatal one.
    - svieira 10y ago
      But the silicon can also make mistakes, and will - when it has to deal with new conditions that weren't anticipated by the manufacturer and breaks hard ... unlike the adaptable meat-bag which will figure out something to do when it starts hailing out of a clear sky in July.
    - kardos 10y ago
      > a chunk of silicon who never gets sick or tired, never overlooks the smallest detail We haven't successfully created bug-free software yet. How exactly is this mythical self-driving car going to pull that off? You did say 'eventually' though, and strictly speaking, that does not put a deadline on these achievements...
- frik 10y ago
  Thankfully, other countries still produce traditional cars, with little "smart technology". I am for self driving cars, as a choice, but those don't have to phone home any data at all to just work fine (in theory). How all smart cars should work: eg current gen Ford and Lexus cars can use your phone over Bluetooth (if you agreed). And if you habe an accident, the inbuilt 100% offline text-to-speech (Nuance based) solution calls 911 or 112 or <emergency number> and says with a voice similar to Siri exactly where the accident happened (GPS coordinates). How telco lobby groups think cars should work: cars sends GPS coordinates every minute incl all car telemetry to a central provider using a telco cell data connection - just in case you may have an accident. Well, you can see how it works out if you don't care about your customer and build something no one wants - people bought smaller cheaper cars from Japan and Asia in general. Now Detroit car industry has a big problem.
- gambiting 10y ago
  My 21 years old Fiat Cinquecento, that doesn't have ABS, power steering, airbags, and which has a crumple zone probably ending somewhere behind my head, costs me ~$200/year to insure. Mostly because it's not worth very much. If older cars are meant to have costlier insurance, then I haven't seen a single example of that actually happening, ever.
  - maxerickson 10y ago
    Do you not insure yourself while you are in it? As a USian who has driven inexpensive cars, something like 2/3 of my car insurance payments have been for medical coverage. If there is a substantial difference in the medical costs associated with auto drive and manual drive, I'm sure that single payer systems would also account for it somehow.
    - gambiting 10y ago
      I live in the EU. It's the law that any car insurance, even the cheapest one, has to cover up to 5 million euro in medical expenses(plus up to 3 million euro in damages to property). I know in US you have to specify how much you are insuring yourself for, but in EU it's literally unheard of, I guess you could theoretically ask for more than that 5 million euro cover, but I have no idea why you would. And yeah, that medical cover is only useful if you need any rehabilitation afterwards, but I literally can't think of anything that would actually produce a bill, I could have 10 operations after an accident and no hospital would actually bill anyone for it(well, they would bill the government, but the insurer wouldn't care).
      - maxerickson 10y ago
        Right, it isn't the same coverage then if the government system is picking up the hospital bills. Note that I'm not praising the US system here, I was just surprised at how low a payment you got (I was paying ~$600 for basic liability and great medical coverage). The point I'm reaching for is that the system where the government pays for medical care will likely respond to a substantial difference in safety, at least in the case it would save the system a substantial amount of money.
- MrFoof 10y ago
  >Finally a break point is reached where the legislators see that allowing comparatively death-trap like normal cars on public roads is irresponsible, and they become banned. Here's why that won't happen: Motorcycles. If motorcycles came into existence in, say, the 1970s, they would've never been made road legal. However, there's too many of them out there nowadays that barring their use through legislation would cause a massive backlash. Now apply that to cars, of which there are far more, and which they cost people significantly more money to obtain. Banning them would be political suicide. Non-automated cars will simply be treated like motorcycles. If you're willing to accept the risks and costs, it's your choice. It just eventually (i.e. 2040 or 2050) won't make sense for the vast majority of people.
  - JoeAltmaier 10y ago
    Motorcycles are the cheap way onto the road. Drivable cars are just the opposite - expensive and getting more so. I can easily see the population of manually-operated cars reducing to nearly zero, then getting regulated out of existence. Look what happened to buckboards and horses!
    - MrFoof 10y ago
      >Motorcycles are the cheap way onto the road So are used cars. A smart person doesn't go out and buy a $20,000 economy car. They go buy a $5,000 used car which in fact will be very reliable when maintained. A lot of people instead spend <= $3K. People don't buy cheap motorcycles in the US for transportation. I've met plenty of motorcycle owners, of all walks of life, and only have met one or two who bought it as their only and primary transportation. >then getting regulated out of existence Good luck getting campaign support from Porsche, Ferrari, Lamborghini and other exotic and sports car (ex. there are more Corvette owners than Porsche sports car owners) owners on that one. There's no backlash against banning Toyota Corollas. However the die-hard car enthusiasts will fight tooth and nail to ensure their expensive sports cars aren't useless, and there's enough of them (with enough money) to ensure any such plan to keep them off the road will fail (and to ensure you never get elected to office again). The "problem" will mostly solve itself, as eventually (decades), TCO alone will result in most people not owning and operating their own vehicle. Most of what will be left are simply enthusiasts, of which there are a significant enough number (same with motorcycles). They'll pay what it costs to enjoy their toy, while the remaining 99%+ of the population won't care for such things and rely on autonomous cars. Moreover, autonomous cars are going to have decades of development having learned to deal with non-autonomous cars.

Karunamon 10y ago

Eventually you won't have a choice. How I see this breaking down is that once the automation and connectivity tech has had a chance to be proven statistically safer, the insurance companies will move in. First, discounts for driving a fully automatic car. Smaller, then larger. Then, normal cars' insurance gets more expensive as the automatics proliferate. Eventually prohibitively so. Finally a break point is reached where the legislators see that allowing comparatively death-trap like normal cars on public roads is irresponsible, and they become banned. Car makers react by eventually ceasing production of manual drive cars by all but special request and for special uses.

kardos 10y ago
It could also play out that the risky poor drivers end up choosing self-driving cars and the low-risk drivers continue to drive as always. Although, a self-driving car would be convenient for overnight driving....
- Karunamon 10y ago
  On a macro level, there is no such thing as a "low risk driver" when you're comparing a meatbag with all its imperfections against a chunk of silicon who never gets sick or tired, never overlooks the smallest detail, and is constantly rechecking its assumptions thousands of times per second. You could be the most attentive, conscientious driver in the entire world - you will eventually make a mistake, possibly a fatal one.
  - svieira 10y ago
    But the silicon can also make mistakes, and will - when it has to deal with new conditions that weren't anticipated by the manufacturer and breaks hard ... unlike the adaptable meat-bag which will figure out something to do when it starts hailing out of a clear sky in July.
  - kardos 10y ago
    > a chunk of silicon who never gets sick or tired, never overlooks the smallest detail We haven't successfully created bug-free software yet. How exactly is this mythical self-driving car going to pull that off? You did say 'eventually' though, and strictly speaking, that does not put a deadline on these achievements...
frik 10y ago
Thankfully, other countries still produce traditional cars, with little "smart technology". I am for self driving cars, as a choice, but those don't have to phone home any data at all to just work fine (in theory). How all smart cars should work: eg current gen Ford and Lexus cars can use your phone over Bluetooth (if you agreed). And if you habe an accident, the inbuilt 100% offline text-to-speech (Nuance based) solution calls 911 or 112 or <emergency number> and says with a voice similar to Siri exactly where the accident happened (GPS coordinates). How telco lobby groups think cars should work: cars sends GPS coordinates every minute incl all car telemetry to a central provider using a telco cell data connection - just in case you may have an accident. Well, you can see how it works out if you don't care about your customer and build something no one wants - people bought smaller cheaper cars from Japan and Asia in general. Now Detroit car industry has a big problem.
gambiting 10y ago
My 21 years old Fiat Cinquecento, that doesn't have ABS, power steering, airbags, and which has a crumple zone probably ending somewhere behind my head, costs me ~$200/year to insure. Mostly because it's not worth very much. If older cars are meant to have costlier insurance, then I haven't seen a single example of that actually happening, ever.
- maxerickson 10y ago
  Do you not insure yourself while you are in it? As a USian who has driven inexpensive cars, something like 2/3 of my car insurance payments have been for medical coverage. If there is a substantial difference in the medical costs associated with auto drive and manual drive, I'm sure that single payer systems would also account for it somehow.
  - gambiting 10y ago
    I live in the EU. It's the law that any car insurance, even the cheapest one, has to cover up to 5 million euro in medical expenses(plus up to 3 million euro in damages to property). I know in US you have to specify how much you are insuring yourself for, but in EU it's literally unheard of, I guess you could theoretically ask for more than that 5 million euro cover, but I have no idea why you would. And yeah, that medical cover is only useful if you need any rehabilitation afterwards, but I literally can't think of anything that would actually produce a bill, I could have 10 operations after an accident and no hospital would actually bill anyone for it(well, they would bill the government, but the insurer wouldn't care).
    - maxerickson 10y ago
      Right, it isn't the same coverage then if the government system is picking up the hospital bills. Note that I'm not praising the US system here, I was just surprised at how low a payment you got (I was paying ~$600 for basic liability and great medical coverage). The point I'm reaching for is that the system where the government pays for medical care will likely respond to a substantial difference in safety, at least in the case it would save the system a substantial amount of money.
MrFoof 10y ago
>Finally a break point is reached where the legislators see that allowing comparatively death-trap like normal cars on public roads is irresponsible, and they become banned. Here's why that won't happen: Motorcycles. If motorcycles came into existence in, say, the 1970s, they would've never been made road legal. However, there's too many of them out there nowadays that barring their use through legislation would cause a massive backlash. Now apply that to cars, of which there are far more, and which they cost people significantly more money to obtain. Banning them would be political suicide. Non-automated cars will simply be treated like motorcycles. If you're willing to accept the risks and costs, it's your choice. It just eventually (i.e. 2040 or 2050) won't make sense for the vast majority of people.
- JoeAltmaier 10y ago
  Motorcycles are the cheap way onto the road. Drivable cars are just the opposite - expensive and getting more so. I can easily see the population of manually-operated cars reducing to nearly zero, then getting regulated out of existence. Look what happened to buckboards and horses!
  - MrFoof 10y ago
    >Motorcycles are the cheap way onto the road So are used cars. A smart person doesn't go out and buy a $20,000 economy car. They go buy a $5,000 used car which in fact will be very reliable when maintained. A lot of people instead spend <= $3K. People don't buy cheap motorcycles in the US for transportation. I've met plenty of motorcycle owners, of all walks of life, and only have met one or two who bought it as their only and primary transportation. >then getting regulated out of existence Good luck getting campaign support from Porsche, Ferrari, Lamborghini and other exotic and sports car (ex. there are more Corvette owners than Porsche sports car owners) owners on that one. There's no backlash against banning Toyota Corollas. However the die-hard car enthusiasts will fight tooth and nail to ensure their expensive sports cars aren't useless, and there's enough of them (with enough money) to ensure any such plan to keep them off the road will fail (and to ensure you never get elected to office again). The "problem" will mostly solve itself, as eventually (decades), TCO alone will result in most people not owning and operating their own vehicle. Most of what will be left are simply enthusiasts, of which there are a significant enough number (same with motorcycles). They'll pay what it costs to enjoy their toy, while the remaining 99%+ of the population won't care for such things and rely on autonomous cars. Moreover, autonomous cars are going to have decades of development having learned to deal with non-autonomous cars.