Posted on 03/18/2015 6:41:09 AM PDT by kosciusko51
Tesla Motors CEO Elon Musk thinks every car on the road today — and many more in the future — will eventually be outlawed.
The reason? They require humans to drive.
“In the distant future, [legislators] may outlaw driven cars because they’re too dangerous,” Musk told NVIDIA CEO Jen-Hsun Huang at company’s annual developers conference Tuesday. ”You can’t have a person driving a two-ton death machine.”
(Excerpt) Read more at news.yahoo.com ...
If you keep putting democrats in the White House ,Yes ,but only in the US
An all new meaning to Happy Hour! ==
Your car will sense your intoxicated state, and drive you to the cop shop.
This is probably surprising to the author and Mr. Musk, but there are vast areas of this country that don’t have neatly paved, maintained, mapped and manicured roads.
We have property in WV and the neighbors tell us that mapping software is notorious for sending visitors on “shortcuts” that land them down a deteriorating lane through the middle of nowhere, that terminates at an impassable creek without anywhere to turn around. This happens all the time.
Google shows a “road” leading to our property that goes over a 2’ wide foot bridge over a large creek. That bridge wasn’t even passable on foot for several decades until last year (the owner fixed it up). To get to the bridge, you have to cross a large farm field that is in a flood plain near a river (it can be underwater). Would be interesting to see at what point on that voyage one of these wundercarz would decide that maybe it’s time to abort.
Maybe this will work great on the coasts or in major metropolitan areas (although given my observations of how cities manage their streets, even there I have my doubts) but it would take a herculean effort to make it work everywhere.
The more likely action of these control freaks is to just ban “unnecessary” transportation period.
. . of course there will be some who are exempt from your theory right?
(Lib response) Only the lower classes do that sort of thing, and we must discourage it!
He is a presumptive little a-hole, ay?
Also another point - if planes still need humans to sit in the cockpit and take over if something were to go wrong - and they’ve had more time to work to solve that problem and there is more infrastructure in place to help to solve that problem - why are we to think that ground transportation should be fundamentally any different.
I think a car “autopilot” can be made to work 99.something percent of the time. But getting that to 100% - not holding my breath.
Sadly, I think he’s right. It’s inevitable, if our society lasts long enough, and we keep even having private vehicles, that they will end up being operated by computers. People are just too unreliable, as is witnessed by the carnage on our roads that happens every day. Maybe they’ll still permit us limited manual control for parking lots and off-highway areas (like private roads at cottages). I’ll be sad if it means I can’t ride my motorcycle on the road anymore. OTOH, I won’t have to worry about some blind blue-hair, or teenager who can’t stop texting, wiping me out with a rear-ender at a stop light.
“Fly your plane for you?”
To play the devil’s advocate - possibly.
Professional pilots are highly trained and regulated, and even they make mistakes that bring planes down. The number of planes saved from disaster by quick-thinking pilots is probably outnumbered by those that were crashed due to pilot error. Planes are already automated for a good deal of the flight.
Now cars, on the other hand, especially here in north America, are operated by poorly trained drivers, many lacking the coordination, senses, reaction times, or just plain common sense to be operating a motor vehicle safely. Then mix in the ones who are drunk or high on something, or falling asleep.
Don’t get me wrong, I’m not a big fan of having computers take over our roads, but I can see that it is probably inevitable. Meanwhile, if every car on the road had one of these collision avoidance systems that are now available, we could probably eliminate at least one type of accident - the rear-ender. Perhaps not the most severe class of accidents, although your perspective on that is a little different if you happen to ride a motorcycle in traffic regularly.
If cars were a new invention, today’s US government would never allow citizens to drive them.
They say aspirin would not get FDA approval if invented today.
From my cold, dead hands.
Originally I thought it was a stupid idea... then I thought about it a bit. Love the idea!
How my life will change:
I can send the car to pick up my groceries.
I can put my pets in the car and send them to the vet.
Someone needs a ride? no problem! I can send the car to them!
oh and there’s also no more need for a designated driver! Everyone gets to party now!
re: Rush
Exactly my first thought also
I am with you. My license will not be renewed next birthday because of deteriorating eyesight. Becoming dependent because of failing physical ability is the worst part of aging.
or nascar
They can have my Shelby GT500 when they pry my cold, dead fingers from the steering wheel.
Well, government believes it has the power to command you to purchase.
So that is fully in keeping with their belief in their own power.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.