"Ike" (untitledcarshow)
10/19/2015 at 17:59 • Filed to: autonomous, Cars
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"Ike" (untitledcarshow)
10/19/2015 at 17:59 • Filed to: autonomous, Cars | 1
| 4 |
If you’ve been following along, you know there a bunch of manufacturers moving towards autonomous cars. Like any big innovation there will unintended consequences, and industry’s that will take hits that you wouldn’t think of.
Let’s take the Volvo XC90, being Volvo’s flagship model, it will probably be the first to be totally autonomous. With Volvo recently saying they will take liability in the event of a crash while the car is in autonomous mode, it will be a car I’ll feel safe falling asleep in while it’s driving.
Why did I say anything about sleeping in the car?
Simple, if you can sleep while your car ferries you around, you can skip most flights. In my life I go to Chicago about once a quarter to visit family and friends. The 600 mile journey takes about 10 hours, as the speed limit is around 65mph, and you need gas about 1.5 times depending on the car’s gas tank.
So at the moment I hope in be car late at night with the wife and baby, we start on the journey and as everyone else sleeps I drive: and drive and drive. When we arrive in the wee morning hours I am wiped out, and the day is normally slow as I recover from the trip, and worst still the hotel makes us wait until some time mid-afternoon to check in.
Flying is almost worst, the family gets up super early we drive to the airport; pay to leave the car in a spot. Hope that we don’t get stuck next to some weirdness on the plane. Then when we land we have to pay to get another car to drive around, then again we wait to check in at the hotel.
I think autonomous cars are going to solve these issues.
If you want to make a journey across the country that’s less then about 12 hours (if you average out about 60mph then say 720ish miles), you could just hop in your XC90 and have it drive you and your family cross country. Since Volvo is taking liability if you crash, just lean the seat back, go to sleep, and wake up in Chicago.
Speaking of sleeping in your car, why pay for a hotel, when you can do just that? I think a bright move for automakes would be to have a “hotel mode” call it whatever better name then that , but have the car circle around a path or area chosen by the driver. It would make a lot more sense to me to spend my evening in a place where I know a million different people haven’t come though and done dirty unspeakable acts on my resting place. S eamen on all the things. I know the idea of sleeping in your car is not a very comfortable thought at the moment. But as autonomous cars take off, I think you’ll see a return to the roots of American cars.
LAND YACHTS!
I mean if we get this whole renewable/electric car thing going. Not much of a reason not to right? If Apple has taught me anything, bigger device, bigger battery pack! We could then travel further at higher speeds, there by making the whole country less then a nights sleep away. As that progresses, automakers could be putting more bed like seats into the cars.
This is the future I would like to see, and the one I think we are on the way towards.
Watch out motel 6 your days are numbered! What doesn’t every one stay there? You have to turn the light off! They left it on! It’s madness!
Ike is co-host of the Untitled Car Show ( untitledcarshow.podomatic.com ) he has owned 2 Dodge Challengers; a Volvo C30, a V70XC, a V70R, 740; and a Saturn Ion . He is a new father and loves driving and autocrossing. He can jerry rig with the best of them, and he wrote his bio in third person. He also has 2 dogs, 2 cats and is a crazy person some say!
Email the author untitledcarshow@gmail.com
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bob and john
> Ike
10/19/2015 at 18:11 |
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this whole thing is bullshit. self driving cars where invented eons ago.
they are called taxis
-James May, top gear host-
RamblinRover Luxury-Yacht
> Ike
10/19/2015 at 18:13 |
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‘42 Chrysler detected. Y’know, I’m all for a setup that could make something like that autonomous if needed. Make an automated box to hook to the clutch z-bar and the trans links, another one to hook to the steering, one to the gas, and an electric servo master cylinder teed in with the normal one. Four sensors in the corners of the car. Heck, you’d barely have to drill a single hole; if it was set up right, the rig could bolt on. Why are we not doing this kind of retro-futurism? The kind of automation that works on simple principles the way people back then expected?
With the placidity of a car like this, people would give it a wide berth, and it wouldn’t accelerate or do anything else wildly enough to get itself into trouble. The Route 66/boulevard cruiser self-driving car.
Perfect.
Grindintosecond
> Ike
10/19/2015 at 18:21 |
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Aftermarket steering wheel manufacturers. Dead.
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Ike
> Grindintosecond
10/19/2015 at 18:24 |
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Maybe they could do aftermarket... Pillows?