The hit of last week’s Detroit Auto Show was the 2013 Ford Fusion. This was a surprise because the car was merely a stylistic upgrade of an existing model.
The real significance of the Fusion is not the “strong personality” or the fact that Ford will offer both hybrid and plug-in hybrid versions, but that it is the first moderate-priced (under $30,000) car to offer key technologies on the road to driverless cars: adaptive cruise control, lane keeping, self-parking, and collision avoidance. While Ford’s versions of these technologies are weak in that they don’t actually drive the car, when combined with an enhanced GPS navigation system, it is likely that all that will be needed to turn the 2013 Fusion into a totally self-driving car will be a software upgrade.
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Even more powerful near-self-driving cars are on the horizon. Volkswagen has an “auto pilot” car that goes “semi-automatically at speeds of up to 80 mph on highways.” BMW is testing a similar technology. Audi (owned by Volkswagen) has a “traffic jam assistant” that can handle driving on streets and in thick traffic at up to 37 mph. But basically, these cars use the same technologies as the 2013 Ford Fusion with more complex software and perhaps a few additional sensors.
General Motors’ vice-president of research Alan Taub estimates that fully driverless cars will be available for sale by 2020, which is two years later than his predecessor, Larry Burns, estimated four years ago. But, as Burns noted, the main obstacles are “not technical, but bureaucratic.” So far, the leader in breaking down these bureaucratic obstacles is Google, which recently patented what it hopes will be a key part of future driverless cars. We might be able to accelerate this process if someone can convince Tim Cook and Steve Ballmer to join the fray.
Antiplanner wrote: “This was a surprise because the car was merely a stylistic upgrade of an existing model.”
Yes, it’s just another metal box on wheel, which driven at speed through the urban area, pollutes the neighbourhood and undermines the community. Spending money on cars reduces the opportunities to other buinesses, including transit.
Anyone who tries a ‘traffic jam assistant’ is going to be disappointed, since traffic jams are caused by too many cars, whether or not they have an ‘assistant’. No assistant is going to be able to let the driver ‘just nip through’, as advocated on UK TV. I’d also be sceptical about what happens if the car meets a bicycle, motorbike, or pedestrian, including children chasing balls into the street. So to the disappointment can be added the need for a good lawyer.
Undermines the community. Lol. The laughs keep on coming.
Transit isn’t business. It’s government. There is a difference. In brief, one uses cost/benefit, the other uses force.
Parodies of parodies ’round here.
“Undermines the community. Lol. The laughs keep on coming.”
Yes. Lots of laughs. Research has shown that the higher the traffic flow along a road with houses, the less often those people talk to each other. Drivers fight over curb-side parking, and which bit on unmarked kerb is theirs. In theory, with faster forms of transport the notion of a neighbourhood disappears. But it doesn’t in practice.
“Transit isn’t business. It’s government. There is a difference.”
Whether the transit is provided privately, by the municipality, or by franchise (which is my preferred choice), the profitability comes down to how many people ride the transit versus the costs. So more people using cars means fewer people using transit, and the transit is less profitable. This is aided and abetted by municipalities who think that subsidising transit is okay.
Cars also undermine other businesses. The average cost of running a car is $5000/yr in the UK. Two cars on the driveway means the family is burning north of $10,000 on their cars. That’s money they aren’t spending on other things, that they might enjoy more – holidays, recreation, housing.
GM can sell as many things as they want, they can sell T-shirts and trucker caps for all I care. They’ll never be able to repay the taxpayers. General Motors may made a $3.2 billion profit in the first quarter of 2011 as proof positive that its auto bailout is a success. $3.2 billion is a big number. But an even bigger number is $60 billion. That’s what this administration and the last one together sank into GM (not to mention another $20 billion or so they dumped into Chrysler). Ford really didn’t receive a dime from taxpayers yet made $2.6 billion last quarter, an example of fiscal management on their part. Typically when companies declare bankruptcy, their tax liabilities increase since they have no more losses to write off. But GM got Uncle Sam’s special bankruptcy package that allows it write off up to $45 billion of old losses going forward. The Treasury then gave GM $10 billion of the $60 billion as a loan. One reason GM’s first-quarter profits were even as high as they were was that low gas prices boosted the sale of SUVs and trucks, GM’s (as Ford’s) most profitable products. But with gas prices rising, customer demand is expected to shift to small cars. GM’s small cars such as Chevy Cruz and Malibu have certainly done well in recent months, but their profit margins are small because GM’s labor costs are still too high. GM may have slashed these costs during bankruptcy to $58 per hour, comparable to Toyota’s $56. GM may predict that driverless cars will around in 2020, I don’t think they’ll be the ones selling them. Of course the Big Three like to advertise sufficiently advanced technology. They didn’t like the backlash they got not to long ago when they came in private jets. A week later they came in whatever plug in vehicle they could build to travel from Detroit to Washington. How can Detroit possibly make cars while paying these enourmous labor costs, and the cars show it. The upholstrey isn’t as nice feeling, the interior is real plasticky. Ford has stuck to the habit of using the same interior Sony center stack on several of their vehicles (simply look at the Explorer, the Edge and the new Fusion or the new 2012 Taurus) Chevy’s wood trim looks more like a sticker slapped on……….why….they have such high labor costs they use cheaper materials.
Toyota is not the industry cost leader anymore either; smaller Asian transplants such as Hyundai and Kia with $40-per-hour labor costs are the leader. GM needs to extract more concessions. But UAW leaders have declared that workers have already sacrificed enough to keep GM solvent and now expect givebacks. Honda, Kia, and Hyundai have plants in the USA with state of the art assembly facilities that don’t require significant retooling. They can build any car / truck / SUV they want in a matter of weeks to meet consumer demand.
“So more people using cars means fewer people using transit, and the transit is less profitable”. That’s because cars are more practical. You can go nearly anywhere in a car not so much in transit. Nearly 8 in 10 people claim to be concerned about the environmental impact of driving, but even when walking, biking or public transit are viable options for them, three-quarters of Canadians will still choose to drive. This according to a survey conducted for WWF-Canada, which polled over 2,000 people. Take urban sprawl as an example. Most people don’t move to the suburbs because they want to get away from it “all”. They move there because the farther away a house is from the city, the cheaper it gets. That’s good for people who can’t afford to shell out the average price of a home in Vancouver, Canada of over $600,000. After all the political gobbledegook about global warming and the crying about excess and waste and the need for better fuel efficiency and a change of our lifestyles from consumption to sustainability, the best they can come up with is a carbon tax on my fuel purchases and a hybrid no working person can afford. A simple 4-cylinder does the job. And for one-third to half the price of the plug in hybrid’s the money saved could buy enough gas to drive around the world several times.
Frank said: Transit isn’t business. It’s government.
THWM: Roads are government as well.
FrancisKing said:
Yes. Lots of laughs. Research has shown that the higher the traffic flow along a road with houses, the less often those people talk to each other. Drivers fight over curb-side parking, and which bit on unmarked kerb is theirs. In theory, with faster forms of transport the notion of a neighbourhood disappears. But it doesn’t in practice.
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Research has also shown, Higher traffic flows and lack of parking follows density mandates.
Research has also shown, Higher traffic flows and lack of parking follows density mandates.
Not having actually read that research notwithstanding, crowding follows density achieved by market forces as well. Cities are crowded.
And @Francis, don’t forget the decreased public health with the more cars and internal combustion you have!
DS
Higher traffic flows and lack of parking follows density mandates and density achieved by market forces.
Both usually have to go through government planners, before they are allowed to achieve the increased congestion and reduced parking for a area. That usually have the result of increasing air pollution, for that area.
Yes. Lots of laughs. Research has shown that the higher the traffic flow along a road with houses, the less often those people talk to each other. Drivers fight over curb-side parking, and which bit on unmarked kerb is theirs.
*******
Funny thing is, on my 5 mile drive down a parkway to the freeway each morning, the only thing that tends to slow us down is an empty mass transit bus making mandatory stops at bus stops that don’t have any passengers waiting for them.
Yeah. Lots of laughs.
“Funny thing is, on my 5 mile drive down a parkway to the freeway each morning, the only thing that tends to slow us down is an empty mass transit bus making mandatory stops at bus stops that don’t have any passengers waiting for them.”
That’s not how to run transit – which is probably why no-one is using it. It is also likely to be subsidised, which is why the transit continues to run in this way – no-one cares if it is profitable or not.
It is better to use private transport – cars, bicycles, motorbikes – to move people to the transit station. Then mass transit can then move lots of people at once to another place.
“Yeah. Lots of laughs.”
I’ll go with that.
Frank said: Transit isn’t business. It’s government.
THWM: Roads are government as well.
Andrew: Maybe roads are simply a fact of nature in Frank’s worldview, like trees and grass. He may think they just conveniently grow up on the land with no force or effort required whatsoever.
I’d like to contribute this:
http://www.nbm.org/intelligentcities/topics/city/city-essay.html#full
Enjoy.
It will be interesting if some day a robo car drives over its owner for not liking how it has been treated.
Andrew: Maybe roads are simply a fact of nature in Frank’s worldview, like trees and grass. He may think they just conveniently grow up on the land with no force or effort required whatsoever.
THWM; Good point, though that’s also why O’Toole’s a fraud.
The three laws of robotic cars:
1. A robot car shall get the owner to the destination on time, no matter what, unless a police car is nearby.
2. A robot car shall not let any car cut in front of it and shall accelerate and honk when detecting a turn signal from another car trying to cut in front.
3. A robot car shall drive nicely when within one half mile of the home base.
Sandy Teal said:
The three laws of robotic cars:
1. A robot car shall get the owner to the destination on time, no matter what, unless a police car is nearby.
2. A robot car shall not let any car cut in front of it and shall accelerate and honk when detecting a turn signal from another car trying to cut in front.
THWM: Those “laws” are contradictions.