Editorial: You'll Be Dead Before Autonomous Cars Are Launched

Derek Kreindler
by Derek Kreindler

“Mm, 2000. When I was a kid, we thought 2000 was gonna be like The Jetsons or somin’. It ain’t even The Jeffersons!”-Chris Rock

Most major auto shows, barring the Geneva Auto Salon, having some substantial connection to the automotive world in some way. Detroit. New York. Los Angeles. Shanghai. Tokyo. Paris. Frankfurt. So how did Las Vegas end up with two car shows?

It used to be that the SEMA show was the only place you could catch an automotive exec pawing at a young woman one minute, introducing her as “my niece” the next. But now that the Consumer Electronics Show has morphed into a de facto auto show, you can see that twice in a row, as well as disgraced Gawker editors awkwardly trying to pick up booth babes.

CES, as the WSJ’s Holman Jenkins notes, has become the “self-driving car show”. Jenkins’ piece takes the contrarian view on the self-driving car idea, which is that while the technology may exist, it’s never going to happen. In his mind, the auto makers are merely doing it to keep pace with Google, which will likely shutter its own program as shareholders get antsy about its massive R&D spending in the face of slowing growth.

In my opinion, Occam’s razor applies here. There are just too many obstacles to getting self-driving cars on the road, en masse, in our lifetime. Autonomous cars would require a near-complete overhaul of our roads, open up massively complex questions about liability and most of all, require a substantial shift in mindset by the American public, who, despite what the affluent, childless (not to mention just as provincial as any other American) Silicon Valley set may think may think, are not enamored with the idea of piloting self-driving electric vehicles that are shared on a fractional ownership basis or a setup similar to Zipcar.

The kind of disruption they dream about does not happen in a short time frame – and if they have the magic bullet, why haven’t they gotten started developing it already? To riff on the above Chris Rock quote – we don’t even have a decent network of alternative fuel stations (EV, hydrogen, natural gas, what have you). Tesla hasn’t been able to mass produce an SUV, let alone a volume product. Ford is selling 60,000 F-150s per month. When you are placing bets against a century-old pillar of America’s economy, and the way that the majority of Americans outside New York City and the Bay Area get around, you ought to remember who your counter-party is.

Nor is CES “ the most important car show” either. Like every other auto show, the vast majority of the automotive stories generated at CES remains within the walls of the automotive media, and auto makers are using it to get some free coverage and talk about incremental improvements to infotainment systems that continue to confound and frustrate a good many customers. But that’s ok. That’s how progress really happens. It’s not sexy, nor disruptive, but it sure is effective.

Derek Kreindler
Derek Kreindler

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  • Michael Accardi Michael Accardi on Jan 09, 2015

    Our infrastructure was built with CHEAP energy, the cost alone to redo the infrastructure is prohibitive enough. Although there is something to be noted about Baudrillards observation in System of Objects that "the car achieves an extraordinary compromise, for it makes it possible to be simultaneously at home and further and further away from home"

  • CapVandal CapVandal on Jan 10, 2015

    Stuff happens incrementally or it doesn't happen at all. 1. Self driving tractors are effectively here. It is much easier than a self driving car, but the tolerances are impressive. They can cover a field with close to zero missed areas or overlap. And these are huge machines. 2. There are already convoy like electric linkage between trucks in Europe. The trucks have a lane, and they driven electronically very close together and fast. I see this as related to the impossibility of high speed rail. The only possible alternative is dedicated, high speed lanes with cars electronically controlled. We will never have high speed passenger rail in the US. Why? Because. Or if more is needed, look at the history of the 2nd Avenue Subway. It might be finished 100 years after breaking ground. But, a 100 mph lane would make 300 mile trips as fast as a commercial jet, counting the drive to airport, rental car, need to get to airport early, security, etc. Let the system evolve more, and driving will be viable for even longer distances. One caveat -- commercial aviation in the US is incredibly safe. Most years have no serious crashes.

  • CanadaCraig You can just imagine how quickly the tires are going to wear out on a 5,800 lbs AWD 2024 Dodge Charger.
  • Luke42 I tried FSD for a month in December 2022 on my Model Y and wasn’t impressed.The building-blocks were amazing but sum of the all of those amazing parts was about as useful as Honda Sensing in terms of reducing the driver’s workload.I have a list of fixes I need to see in Autopilot before I blow another $200 renting FSD. But I will try it for free for a month.I would love it if FSD v12 lived up to the hype and my mind were changed. But I have no reason to believe I might be wrong at this point, based on the reviews I’ve read so far. [shrug]. I’m sure I’ll have more to say about it once I get to test it.
  • FormerFF We bought three new and one used car last year, so we won't be visiting any showrooms this year unless a meteor hits one of them. Sorry to hear that Mini has terminated the manual transmission, a Mini could be a fun car to drive with a stick.It appears that 2025 is going to see a significant decrease in the number of models that can be had with a stick. The used car we bought is a Mk 7 GTI with a six speed manual, and my younger daughter and I are enjoying it quite a lot. We'll be hanging on to it for many years.
  • Oberkanone Where is the value here? Magna is assembling the vehicles. The IP is not novel. Just buy the IP at bankruptcy stage for next to nothing.
  • Jalop1991 what, no Turbo trim?
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