It's easy to understand why early cars looked like carriages without horses. First of all, an appropriate metaphor for designing an "automobile" was years away from being established. Societal expectations about what personal transportation could be really didn't need to exceed the present paradigm. The potential of a carriage without a horse was more than enough to initially attract what would quickly become a sizable market.
(Special Note: And before anyone wants debate how cars are horrible for the environment, think about the alternative. Consider that in London, early automobiles were celebrated as an ecologic answer to the horrible problem of having to daily remove tons of animal manure from city streets. Yes - I get that public transportation has potential. But you can't call a train to take you to the hospital. Not even in Japan).
Anyway, back to the original point. The real reasons that early cars looked as they did is because 1) There was no other existing infrastructure for methods of distribution or manufacturing. Roads were often little more than single-lane, tree-lined paths incapable of more than light traffic. And 2) if you wanted to build anything mechanical to transport a few people at a time you contracted with a buggy and carriage maker. Few others had the necessary expertise to engineer the wheels, suspension and infrastructure required to evolve into early automobiles.
So now, 100 years or so later - it's come to this.
And as much as it pains Guy Robinson, who constantly suggests I drive some European thing of beauty from VW, Volvo, Saab, Audi, BMW, Mercedes or Fiat (or maybe not Fiat - maybe the Fiat is Robin Capper's nagging ;) this is the family car. And I sincerely appreciate their suggestions. But to date neither have offered to augment any of the required funds for such an upgrade. ;)
Yet in any event, if a Honda minivan represents the most mundane demographic of automobile design evolution of the past 100 years, consider the following:
- An six-cylinder engine that shuts down by half after the stress of acceleration
- Fully climate controlled
- Cruise control
- Anti-lock breaking
- Front, side and rear airbags
- Satellite navigation and entertainment
- Audio and video feed to flat screen monitor and wireless headphones
- Room for eight passengers and luggage
- Distances in excess of 600 miles per day for less than $100
IMO, it's it's a damn shame that out of so many automotive engineers the world has yet to offer, somehow they've forgotten one of the most primal of automotive design equations:
(Transportation * Freedom of Movement)
(Sense of Danger - Adult Supervision)] =
% Chance of Getting Laid
(Sense of Danger - Adult Supervision)] =
% Chance of Getting Laid
No hormonal driven teenager wants to drive a car that resembles a catfish that's had its head run over by a pickup.
But once again, I digress. What I'm trying to get to is the following prediction:
The next major revolution in transportation won't be driven
by developments in propulsion. It'll be lead by advancements in automated navigation.
by developments in propulsion. It'll be lead by advancements in automated navigation.
This is why the past 100 years of engineering and manufacturing hasn't really evolved. We've simply been trying to improve on the original 100-year old concept of "horseless-ness". This is evolution. Not revolution.
Animals as the engine gave way to engines that were animals. Internal combustion is far more reliable, cost effective and timely. And now we're we're in the process of trying to find a replacement for internal combustion. But neither represent a true paradigm shift. Because these "new" methods of transportation are little different than the first transition a century ago, when the first cars resembled the latest carriages. The irony now is that the first electric/hybrids/biodiesel vehicles merely resemble the latest offerings in internal combustion.
Why is the above description an evolution rather than a revolution? Because since the beginning of time, the fact is we're still stuck steering.
But now there's this.
And this. And this and this and this.
Hello? Cars that steer themselves? Trucks that steer themselves? Are you kidding me?
I believe this will be the next paradigm shift in personal transportation. You've got to believe that the next call to Google after this news broke was from the CEO of FedEx, while the CEO of UPS was "quite happy" to hold on line two. Never mind the US Postal Service. They've still not called. And their union is probably shitting bricks right now.
Implications?
- Automated, 24/7 commercial trucking (not to mention lower shipping costs).
- Maximized fuel consumption.
- Not only automated - but free - public transportation. Because driver-less buses will save is as much if not more than the revenue generated by fares.
- At risk groups (kids / teenagers / elderly) that can 'drive' themselves (school, friends, shopping, etc).
- Much, much faster (and far safer) personal transportation. Remove the element of fatigue, and speeds in excess of 200kph are possible over long distances with systems that take real-time weather, temperature, traffic and other external conditions into account - in a fraction of reaction times compared to human-based systems.
- Personal transportation far better equipped for long-distance and overnight trips. Options that enhance relaxation and even sleeping will become a feature. Hey! I guess this does tie into my previous tangent!
When will this become a reality? About the same time Oprah convinces mothers (and the Federal Government) to nationally outlaw cell phones and texting while driving. The day after that law passes, this technology will be become publicly available. :)
So while this...
...actually evolved into this...
...with a little help from Google, it may eventually become this:
Norman Rockwell was truly ahead of his time. If you look closely, the dad is using an iPad. ;)
7 comments:
I just think it's funny that you're prepared to pay a healthy premium for supposedly better by design Apple products, yet keeping safe the most precious thing in your life isn't worth a premium. ;-) Taking your arguments to the computer world you should be buying Dells ;-)
Prius's are a flawed concept. Any modern european diesel car will be more efficient. But for what ever reason diesel cars in USA are a non starter. In Europe >50% of new cars sold are now diesels.
Would love to see self drive cars on the gravel roads around here... ;-)
Agreed 100% on your thoughts on how new modes of transportation look eerily like the old ones. To some extent, the same can be said about CAD software as well... Oh, and how the Prius looks like complete ass. Truly Awful.
But I'm convinced drive-by-wireless is going to be here faster than anyone previously thought, because of two reasons.
First, all of the raw materials are here. We have electro-wizadry in everything nowadays - Hell, my new fridge has a GPS. And it's all pretty good, fast, and cheap.
For the car, you're probably talking an iPad's worth of additional smarts and required radio/GPS appurtenant electronica and mechanica to turn the wheels.
After that, it's all about the infrastructure, which probably would not solely be a GPS solution (or maybe it does - those Google kids sure are smart). I would think it includes some sort of roadside-installed transmitter + scanner + comm device which IDs and records vehicle trajectory data in real time, and communicates that data to others as well. Basically it turns a stretch of highway into one big LAN party moving at 100mph.
Secondly, we have a massive convergence of demand forces. Our society now absolutely has to have wireless driving, just as it demanded private cars and trucks in the last century. The equation is simple: Multiply the premium people now put on their time by the staggering public and private costs involved in having humans operate heavy machinery (insurance, property damage, personal injury, legal and court costs, work time lost, not to mention the loss of millions of happy hours) by the insane times we face commuting because, unless you're Grizzly Adams, chances are you wouldn't be caught dead living close to where you work.
That equals wireless driving, pure and simple, and it can't get here fast enough. Sometimes it sucks to always live 20 years before the Good Old Days.
And once it becomes a reality, I'm buying a bar.
Hi Matt. Thanks for the comments. Agree with all, but believe that GPS lacks the resolution and real-time info for high speed navigation. I suspect that some type of high res cameras are being used for pattern recognition (for lanes and signage) along with real-time radar (for immediate and distant traffic info).
Thoughts?
Phil
Yeah, Google's use of technology to pull this off is fine, but it's definitely proof of concept, Etienne Lenoir circa 1860 kind of stuff. Cameras and radar is fine, but I can only see this being a viable widespread reality when we improve real-time reporting, e.g. embedding devices in the road itself as markers, and/or enabling cars to talk to each other BlueTooth style. That way, news of any bug in the system (read: crash) can be transmitted in real time and new routes can automatically be applied up the traffic stream.
The biggest obstacle is liability. How many times has your computer crashed? Who's gonna pay when your computer controlled car crashes? If you ask me, this is the same reason the AEC industry doesn't have BIM as a deliverable yet... who's gonna pay when the model is wrong?
Good points; there's no perfect safety system, but I would imagine that if it works way more often than it fails, the cost savings over what we have now is still compelling. But lawyers would not be put out of work, obviously.
There's also the obvious implication of reduced privacy, as any comprehensive system is probably going to have to track the car ID itself and thus have an idea of where you are and when.
Of course, the flip side is the benefit package that comes along with it, such as the ability to track stolen cars (Hell, it could just drive people directly to jail) and OnStar like features such as immediately notifying police/fire teams when things go wrong.
Big issue we had with the Prius when we last were car shopping is that the gas savings don't really calc out unless you plan on keeping the car for ten to fifteen years IIRC. Which, honestly, you should be able to keep a car for.
Yet many of the car's systems, at the time (it had just come out), didn't seem like they would last that long. For example, everything in the car was routed through an in-dash touchscreen for control. When we asked about something like that lasting fifteen years, we were brushed off.
Add in software support. No computer company I know of outside of big iron mainframe people promise full support for 15 years.
So we wound up buying a Subaru instead! No nav, no touchscreen, easy to work on... ;-)
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