Tonight, I was watching a video on the new Tesla Model X, and they were testing all the tech gadgets that car offers like gull-wing doors, butler mode, and the big news self driving system. After watching it, I went out and looked at my Saturn and felt like it's from the Flintstones era of cars. and that got me to thinking.

There is usually about a 20 year lag from when a technology is introduced to when it becomes "mainstream." From horse and buggy, it took about 20 years for the rules of the road to be developed and for cars to be accepted as the new type of transportation. It took 20 years for ABS to be standard or available in just about every car sold. It's taken about 20 years for navigation systems to trickle down from high end European cars to today's Nissan Versa.

Why is it always about 20 years? At first I thought it was the price of the technology, but that's not really it, because adding navigation to a new car is still quite an expensive option. Is it the price of technology? Maybe, but how expensive is it to stick a cell phone camera to the trunk of a car now?

No, the biggest reason why it takes 20 years for a new technology to take hold is the people using it. At the beginning of development, there has to be a few guinea pigs to try it out. At the same time, a larger pool of people shake their heads and say, "I've been driving just fine without it all these years. I don't need it."

The inverse is also true. Take a teenager and plop a dial phone in front of him and he's not going to know what to make of it. When Tesla technology becomes mainstream, "drivers" will forget how to drive a car because they'll be so used to the car driving for them.

So that takes me back to the Saturn. The technology gap between the analog Saturn and a digital BMW is staggering today. Thinking how that gap will only widen in the next 5 or 10 years is scary to me.

 

I dread the day when cars are mandated to be "self driving" cars. Where's the fun in driving if all you do is plop you axx in a pod that takes you from point A to point B while you watch a movie or surf the internet or text a friend. You might as well not even own a car at that point. Just have a pod show up at your door when you are ready to leave. Hopefully that won't occur during my lifetime. If our transportation comes to this, I would prefer to just skip the self driving cars and jump to the molecular transporter for getting from point A to point B.

Driving a Saturn SL1 isn't exciting as say riding my Goldwing or a fancy sports car, but at least it's more exciting than just sitting there while the car makes all the decisions for me.

 

Funny enough, my co-worker is looking forward to self driving vehicles so he can sleep on his way to and from work lol. It wouldnt be for me, I like my older vehicles.

I do agree with you though Dave, Im glad that I was probably in the only generation to grow up with technology (if that makes sense). I remember playing outside and coming home when the streetlights came on (or if I heard my parents yelling from the back deck). Still having old technology but getting to play with the new stuff as it came out. I remember my sisters NES, my first Gameboy, ect. Hell a few weeks ago my buddies and I were getting all nostalgic when we started looking up old phones (i remember getting introuble for texting on my moms star-trac). I feel bad for kids now a days, thier lives revolve around the computers in thier pockets. Hell, 11 year olds have newer phones than me!

but back to topic, in no time we will have a large majority of people who do not know how to drive, thanks to all these dummy assists. I am fully against them because people are starting to put too much faith in them. the mentality will soon be: Gotta text someone, go for it, your car will assist in keeping you in your lane or stop for you while your head is down. Too lazy to turn your head while passing, backing up, or anything that requires checking your blindspot, dont worry bout it, your car will beep in its displeasure that you are trying to damage those thin body panels. Im all for abs, trac and stability control, and even backup cameras (they are great for hooking trailers on your own) but the rest of it im iffy about. maybe its good for the much older crowds driving, but for the people learning to drive for the first time, this is a big no no for me. I dont think saftey starts with computer assists, I believe saftey starts with better training in the first place.

I like to think of it this way, compare to the times saturn came out and now. When the s-series came out (think of early to late 90s) there were HUGE improvements and advances in tech, something new every week. However nowadays I believe that the tech has settled out, everything is still an advancement, but not like it was years before. Really it seems sometimes that the only things advancing are screen size, even when there are other minute changes that arent noticed anymore because everything is now fast, that extra bit of fast isnt easy to see.

/end book lol

 

Right now, I think cars like the Tesla Model X are just for people who like to show off technology just for the sake of technology. However, it wasn't so long ago that people driving around in showy hybrid cars that shouted I AM DRIVING A ECO TREE KISSING HYBRID CAR!! Now, the Prius is pretty mainstream and cars like the Volt and Leaf are looking more normal and can actually take us somewhere. Hybridization of "regular" cars are also part of the norm now. So maybe in 10 years or so, this self-driving tech-fest on wheels will become the new normal...or at least more accepted.

 

Actually, having worked on Li-ion batteries for an aircraft application for the past couple of years now, I'm pretty pumped about the Tesla cars. That is a technology that will only continue to grow and will (and has) gotten a lot safer in the past 10 years.

 

Don't get me wrong, guys, I'm not against the self driving car, as I would love to catch a nap on the way to work in the morning and arrive in one piece, and I'm not against things like ABS, traction control, stability control, and the like... The big deal is that these features should be able to be defeated or toggled on and off... I learned to drive on a truck that was older than me, had none of those features, and because of that, I learned to handle all sorts of road conditions just by feel, and to check my blind spots and such... How do we train people to safely and effectively handle the 4000lb car theyre piloting when the car does it all for us? I still prefer the old way, judging traction with my right foot, and feeling the car gain and lose traction, and I still enjoy driving my own car, shifting my own gears, and making my own choices, but I might also have a self driving model to commute in...