A couple days before Christmas I went on a 1,000 mile road trip to deliver three pounds of bacon to a location just outside the Quantico military base in Virginia. It was a fun adventure that I’ll give you the blow by blow, in-depth account of next week. We made the trip in a New Cadillac XTS-V Sport which was a perfect whip for a long ass highway drive. The car is a big ticket piece that is chock full of every high tech doodad you can imagine and some that you literally couldn’t. The secret compartment hidden behind the dash was James Bond trickery at its finest but it wasn’t the thing that really blew my mind and actually made me scared for the future of driving cars. The thing that did the trick on the fear front was the adaptive cruise control. At one point, I actually drove 400 miles….or should I say that I guided the car 400 miles without ever touching the pedals.
It is completely bizarre to be in a moving automobile in traffic and have the car maintain perfect following distance, adjust speed to the traffic flow, apply the brakes in every fashion from light to aggressive, come to a complete stop when needed and start moving again with the push of a button. It was a party trick at first and then it became a full fledged test of how far I could actually go before I had to deactivate the system and assume full control of the car again. The longest run we has was (as stated before) 400 miles. Like all things there is good and bad.
I’ll start with the good and that’s the fact that systems like these will prevent a LOT of accidents that would otherwise happen by distracted people ramming into the back of other cars while they’re on the phone, doing their hair, spilling their coffee, etc. It’ll honestly be great for people who suck at driving in general and if you have ever spent more than 16-seconds behind the wheel you know that the greater majority of people on the roads are a menace to themselves and everyone else.
Here’s the bad and it more the bad for enthusiasts like us. Right now, at this very second all of the technology for a self driving, 100% autonomous car is packaged and ready to go in existing cars. I know that Google has had a bunch of drone car driving around but let’s do the math on what’s on the market in cars RIGHT NOW. The Cadillac had GPS, lane monitoring, adaptive cruise control, and blind spot warning radar. That means in theory this car knows how to get from place a to place b, knows when it is safe to change lanes, and knows how to drive with traffic safely. The one thing that it lacks is the ability to steer itself. Enter Infinity (Nissan) for that. The new Nissan Q50 has “steer by wire” meaning that the car does not require input from a steering shaft to actuate the wheels. There are electric motors that physically turn the wheels after receiving signals from the wheel as it is turned. The people at Infinity have told us that there is some kind of emergency triple redundancy built into the system in the event that the car’s electrical system takes a duper while you are driving.
Adding in “steer by wire” that can get signal from the lane guidance, GPS, and blind spot/lane changing radar, and you have a car that can literally operate itself. You also have a car that can be completely controlled by some weirdo outside force if necessary. I am not a black helicopter conspiracy guy but this type of stuff certainly opens to door to a bunch of weirdness that has never been possible before. I honestly don’t see how there won’t be a fully operational “normal” self driving car for sale in this country by the middle of the 2020s. What does that mean for the long term future? Who the heck knows? It isn’t like one day this stuff is going to hit the market and BOOM everyone will be owning and driving one within a couple of years. Ultimately, and this could be 100 years from now it doesn’t seem like human operated cars will be “safe” for travel once the computerized overlords take the the roads in force. Oh, don’t forget that there are several cars available with self parking technology that negate even the need to understand how to parallel park on your own.
I am honestly conflicted on my thoughts about this technology, especially on its immediate impact because currently it is only found on stuff that costs a bunch of money. The Cadillac that we were driving stickered for $72,000 and similar cars I have driven with matching technology all sold for more than $40,000 so it isn’t like people buying a stripper econobox are getting this stuff and it is bailing them out, but soon enough they will be offering it. For bad and inattentive drivers this technology is a great thing. Not just them but for us. If it keeps an idiot from changing lanes into your GTO or rear ending your hot rod, we’re all coming out ahead. It also means that the bad will get worse when they completely rely on this stuff and even the “good” will probably come down a couple of skill notches when it is all about just whacking a button and letting the car do all or at least most of the work.
As it stands right now, I have to admit that I was really impressed with how the system worked and I also have to admit how easy it was to gain confidence in the system after the first couple times I geeked out and whacked the brakes before the car did it for me. I think I also redeemed myself by getting home, firing up my too big cammed, zero amenities, uglier than hell Caprice and ripping around town to make sure my soul hadn’t been sucked out by the Caddy. It hadn’t….but my fear of the future certainly ratcheted up a few notches.
**Newsflash** Washington DC 2015.- “A fifty car pileup on the I-95 beltway; The cause was an out of control 18 wheeler. The driver claims he was distracted by two young people “banging boots” in the backseat. He claims there was no one a the wheel” I’m going to start wearing a helmet . 🙁
I’ll agree that this technology is amazing, but I take a much different view of it. I feel that this technology has done nothing but promote the distracted driver. I think a driver that is more involved in the operation of the vehicle will be more attentive.
Don’t worry about the cost of self driving electronics.
The Chinese and the NSA will quickly drive the cost of this autonomous technology down and control your car for you.
This is an easy add in for the black boxes all new cars already have on board.
Of course, you, your destination, passengers, and conversation will be monitored 100% and you will receive a constant stream of targeted advertising through the Always ON entertainment system.
This can all be done TODAY!
Welcome to the 21st century.
so did you name it
Red Barchetta
???
There will be the tech fearing knuckledraggers who will never drive such a car no matter how cheap they become. These same people don’t use smart phones, lap tops, or get on the internet thinking they will catch some kind of virus themselves. The kind of guy whose wife has a computer and email in order to get pics of the grand kids, but won’t touch it himself.
I see it as a good thing for commuters in big cities. Thousands of cars moving in unison and talking to each other electronically to get from point A to point B faster with less accidents and the accordian effect that happens now.
For driving enthusiasts who like modern toys, it will just be another electronic gizmo in their expensive car. For, the old school drivers who like controlling their vehicle, it will be turned off for most part.
assuming you CAN turn it off….I’ve driven work cars where you can’t turn off traction control – this may very well end up being like that.
Oh, and I’m not sure you are necessarily a `knuckle dragger’ if you don’t covet the latest i phone or laptop either….sure, my kids have that crap, and yes, i do have a mobile but only a real basic one that makes phone calls and a few other bits n pieces…
Look, this MAY be a good thing in gridlocked cities or freeways, but I can’t really see it affecting me bombing around on dirt roads in the middle of nowhere in Australia. Tell you one thing, though, if some tech laden car like this breaks down in the middle of nowhere I for one would rather be in a car I have some chance of fixing and being able to limp home in….
This is scary. Pretty soon we’ll have a computor thinking for us. Why is it soooo important that we deligate so much of our lives to technology? My 2001 Durango runs fine but the electronics are breaking down on a regular basis. e.c.m., t.c.m., evap., i.a.c., a.b.s.,p.c.d., e.g.r., a.c.c., p.d.l., hot and cold folding doors and floating bathtubs. Yet we are killing each other constantly. Oh, I forgot, still no cure for cancer.
I don’t doubt the gov would love to mandate self driving cars, but I doubt they’d be able to provide roads with stripes, much less roads that are much better than dirt in our lifetimes. It’s also kind of insulting that there’s a need for self driving cars simply because we don’t have things like public transportation (which would include luxuries like self driving trains). Sometimes it feels like technology is in a race to the top while society is in a race to the bottom.
Exactly what I was thinking, wait for the Republic of California or Oregon to mandate it first. Since Ive got a grounded metal box full of ignition modules and coils I’ll still be driving after the Iranians set off an EFP or two. Call me fringe if you like.
Brian, Great story about the Caddy, however I’m most concerned about the 1000 road trip with bacon for the feds. Plus doesn’t Virginia have the best ham parts in the country?
A lot of people don’t like driving, they don’t enjoy driving so of course they’ll want a self driving car. Maybe it will be better for those of us who LIKE driving, maybe it will help our driving experience as these cars should be staying in the right lane and shouldn’t be changing lane and cutting you off. It should also be a god sent gift for emergency vehicule driving people.