Why The Hard-Sell For the “Self-Driving” Car?

Guest Post by Eric Peters

Why the hard-sell for self-driving cars?google car lead

Yesterday, Ford and Volvo announced they are forming a “coaliton” – along with Google – to push not only for the development of self-driving cars, but for federal “action” (their term) to force-feed them to us.

Why?

The reasons are obvious: There’s money – and control – in it.

To understand what’s going on, to grok the tub-thumping for these things, it is first of all necessary to deconstruct the terminology. The cars are not “self-driving.” This implies independence.

And “self-driving” cars are all about dependence.

The “self-driving” car does what it has been programmed to do by the people who control it. Which isn’t you or me. Instead of you controlling how fast you go, when to brake – and so on – such things will be programmed in by … programmers. Who will – inevitably- program in parameters they deem appropriate. What do you suppose those parameters will be?

“Safety” will be the byword, of course.self driving 2

But the point being, you will no longer have any meaningful control over (ahem!) “your” car. You’ll pay for the privilege of “owning” it, of course. But your “ownership” will not come with the right to control what you “own.”

It will be a tag-team of the government and the car companies who control (and thereby, effectively own) “your” car.

And thereby, you.

Not only will how you drive (well, ride) be under their control, they will also know where and when you go. It will be easy to keep track of you in real time, all the time. And if they decide they don’t want you to go anywhere at all, that’s easy, too. Just transmit the code and the car is auto-immobilized.

You only get to go when you have their permission to go. It will be a very effective way of reducing those dangerous “greenhouse gas” emissions, for instance.google control grid

If this all sounds paranoid, consider the times we live in. Reflect upon what we know for a fact they are already doing.   

For instance, making the case – in court – that we (the putative “owners” of “our” vehicles) ought to be legally forbidden from making any modifications to them. The argument being that such modifications could potentially affect various “safety” systems and they do not want to be held liable for any resultant problems that may occur.

This argument easily scales when applied to the self-driving car, which we will be forced to trust with our lives at 70 MPH.

For at least 30 years now – since the appearance of anti-lock brakes back in the ‘80s – the focus of the car industry has been to take drivers and driving out of the equation. To idiot-proof cars. This is easier – and more profitable – than merely building cars that are fun to actually drive.

How much profit margin has been added to a new car via (6-8) air bags? We pay more for the car, more to repair the car (and so, more to insure the car).

This also scales.self driving details

The technology that will be necessary to achieve the “self-driving” car is very elaborate and very expensive.

Thus, very profitable.

Which by itself would be fine… provided we could choose. But we will be told. Like we’re told we must have 6-8 air bags and all the rest of it.

This is the “action” Ford and Volvo and Google are seeking.

I personally have no doubt that, in time, they will make it illegal to own a car that is not “self-driving.” Well, to actually drive the thing. Static museum displays may still be permitted.

Tesla, the state-subsidized electric car – already has the necessary “self-driving” technology and Elon Musk is pushing it, hard. He says it’s a gotta-have because people cannot be trusted to drive themselves. There’s a clue for you as to the mindset of our masters.

But the current price of the least expensive Tesla is just under $70,000.

This is not economically viable when the average family’s income is in the neighborhood of $50,000. And keep in mind, that means half the people to the left of average make less than $50,000.

They cannot afford to buy $25,000 cars.

But maybe they can afford to rent them.

This appears to be where we are headed. The perpetual rental. It makes sense, too – from an economic point-of-view. Why buy that which you don’t really own because it’s not under your control? It would be absurd to buy the bus that you ride to work in. It is arguably just as absurd to buy the car you are driven to work in, too.in chains

The object of this exercise appears to be perpetual debt-servitude as well as placing almost everyone fully and finally under the complete control of the powers that be. Who are no longer just the powers in government. The distinction between state power and corporate power is so blurry now as to be almost impossible to parse. The two are effectively the same thing, working hand in hand for their mutual benefit.

Remember Il Duce:

All within the state, nothing outside the state, nothing against the state.

Sadly, there is no push back. Or doesn’t seem to be. The cattle appear to like the idea of being herded. It is depressing.

The passivity and acceptance of it all.

Must be something in the water.

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Maggie
Maggie
Anonymous
Anonymous

Yes,mandated like poison vaccines,mandated like Monsanto protection act.Those cars are coffins with wheels.

Hollow man
Hollow man

Do the man in Washington can tell you what when and where to go.

TC
TC

Anyone remember the terrible ’80s movie “The Last Chase?” It had me up to the part where California was the car-lover sanctuary. LOL…

John
John

driverless Taxi’s sounds good too me. GPS for cell phone location, push need ride button and enter required destination and robot taxi shows up and brings people to destination or to transfer to bus station if it’s a longer ride.

For a dork with no control over anything in his pathetic life besides his car it will be traumatic to no longer be allowed to be a road bully in his macho machine who is a wannabee NASCAR driver trying to beat everyone else on the road to the next stop light or trying to gain a position on the highway.

It’s funny as shit when a cop pulls the dork over and gives him a ticket. The cops will be out of business and we will be free to travel once there is no reason to have traffic cops. No more DUI roadblocks or made up excuses to make traffic stops hoping to find a idiot to arrest. They will have no probable cause to make traffic stops.

Society won’t need driveways or large parking lots. Door to door curbside rides. No need to own something that is barely used. I figured a year ago I might as well buy my last car because it will last long until robo taxi’s replace the need to own a car.

No more worry about some teenage girl smashing into me or her great grandmother smashing into me or having to put up with dorks on the road.

Anonymous
Anonymous

Self driving cars would seem to present unique opportunities of all kinds for hackers.

Particularly for those of truly evil intent.

Wonder if the President and Elite would be required to use them as well?

Irish

Think about the financial repercussions to the “revenue” collectors, ambulance chasers and insurance companys.

For a moment, consider 10 years in the future.The self driving vehicle is “perfected”.

No speeding or any type of motor vehicle violation hence no tickets.

No crashes hence no insurance or body shops needed .

No traffic related injuries no lawsuits.

Etc.

This will kill a lot of revenue and jobs. OR.. they will look for something else to take our money.

ragman
ragman

He lost me when he complained about anti-skid brakes. Maybe he’s not old enough to remember what it was like 40yrs ago. Some pretty scary shit! Driving through a water puddle resulted in loss of braking until the water drained out of the brakedrum. Under any conditions the driver had to properly modulate pedal pressure for max braking, not an easy task. Disc brakes along with antiskid are exponentially better than the old system. C’mon Eric, you can do better than that!

General
General

There is an added benefit to the political elite. If you are perceived to be a political enemy, you could find your car…. accidently….. go 100 miles per hour into a brick wall. And the news won’t report the…..error.

Anonymous
Anonymous

To heck with these PoS-mobiles. Give me control over my own fate, not some skip-logic program that decides for me whether to put my life or that of the child who just theoretically ran in front of me first. Those wonderful computers and electronics *never* break down or malfunction, either, right? Nope, no blue screens of death, no Teslas turning into car-b-qs, no…wait, nevermind!

I actually went the complete opposite way with my “new” vehicle: It has no wireless, no event data recorder, no power brakes, no air bags, no seatbelts. Make me use them! Oh wait, you can’t, because it’s grandfathered in as a “classic,” albeit with fewer miles on it than most cars of 5+ years.

harry p.

TC,
An older buddy of mine showed me “The Last Chase” about 10 years ago. cool movie (enjoyed it beceause it was so bad) with lee majors and burgess meredtih. not super high quality but interesting aspects like how lee majors character was a paid spokerperson for why cars needed to go.
hard to beleive commiefornia being the last bastion for freedom but weirder shit could happen.

for anyone interested here is the whole movie on youtube. its the MST3K version, with their snarky comments is definitely teh way to watch it.

Ghost

Date is ten years from today. Event is invasion of the former USA, whose miltary leadership has just requested President (Chelsea) Clinton request the UN carbon control leadership provide them with the over-ride code for military vehicle travel.

http://freethoughtblogs.com/taslima/2013/01/13/why-not-gender-neutral-clothes/7226019-bin/

These codes were necessary so that the Army and Marines can use their tanks, trucks and staff cars to move about the countryside at will, without submitting route plans in advance calculating the carbon credits that could be necessary for the fuel consumption required for their projected activities and ensure gender neutrality. Since the military leaders have no clue about anything having to do with actual fighting of an enemy, they are not only unable to hazard a guess at how much fuel fighting an enemy might expend, they also are unable to make sure each vehicle has an equal balance of transgendered soldiers in it, which is a requirement before the computer-chipped controlled vehicles can move. At the first sign of real threat and danger, a large portion of the gender-neutral armed forces went AWOL, creating such a demand for transgendered declaring soldiers that the sign-up bonus for a TGHSG (TransGender High School Graduate) had exceeded the annual pay of a new recruit and caused a large number of otherwise heterosexual young men and women to declare themselves TG in order to qualify for the bonus.

Since most of the leadership’s time had been consumed trying to ferret out the TG recruits who were actually straight to punish them for fraudulently presenting themselves as gender neutral, they had completely missed or ignored the warning signs of attack. And while the great ships of the US Navy were not controlled by UN computer chip, the ability to lauch aircraft and helicopters was dependent on gender neutrality. Now, the country’s last hope rested on the slight chance that the UN might provide the codes to the third president Clinton, who was sending Secretary of State Michelle Obama to negotiate in person so that the US Armed Forces could use their vehicles without being controlled and monitored constantly by the UN.

The leaders of the invading force were thrilled that their plan had worked. After all, it really had been brilliant to sell the idea of Computer Controlled Vehicles to a nation of lazy fat bastards who were more concerned with White Privilege and same sex marriange than considering the danger in having their movements restricted and controlled by computer. The majority were now being carted to the restriction camps by their very safe and secure little cars. And nobody was counting the TGs on board.

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HalfPint
HalfPint

What could possibly go wrong with self-driving cars? What happens when the sun shines in the camera rendering it useless. What happens when it rains ? What happens when a flash of lighting happens? What happens when a component fails? Believe me, I’ve worked in machine vision, machine learning, and neural networks and unless the path of the car is well known with no unforeseen surprises, it will fail at times you never designed for.

My opinion is that it is simply hype for the make money people. Besides, we don’t have enough time to transition to this dream before whatever SHTF scenario happens.

Joey
Joey

My poor nineteen year old.

He can’t and won’t see our (his) future.

Time approaches for him to escape, but to where.????????

How good we had it from the fifties.

All turning to asswipe through fascism, which is dragged socialism.

Or in reverse??

Bea Lever
Bea Lever

HalfPint – Don’t look now but near self-driving vehicles are available for purchase today and 10 million self-driving vehicles will be on the road by 2020.

HalfPint
HalfPint

@Bea Lever

WOW! You took the first article from a goggle search from business insider. Look a little deeper you moron. You live in California?

Iska Waran
Iska Waran

I don’t even lock anti-lock brakes. I’m way better at stopping in snow w/o anti-lock brakes.

Rise Up

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Rise Up

Volvo fail – Self driving car crashes into people

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AsTxS6tg6xc

Philbert Desanex
Philbert Desanex

@ragman: you’re missing the major point of this article–it’s not that ABS is superior or inferior per se to non-ABS equipped cars, it’s the fact that no one has a choice in the matter any longer. The technology is simply incorporated into new car models without allowing buyers the option of declining the additional costs. Look at power windows, intermittent wipers, and remote entry for just a few examples. And as Peters points out, it is highly profitable for the automakers and tech companies to force consumers to purchase without option.

By the way, ABS is not always a necessary option–I’ve been driving for over 40 years in the desert SW and I cannot recall a time when my brakes became so wet that an accident was prevented due to ABS technology. Having reasonable options in any purchase should always be preferred for consumers

Bob
Bob

The last straw will be the self-electing politician…

Westcoaster
Westcoaster

The car companies are self-inflicting a complete drop in sales by this “self-driving” crap. American’s big love affair with the automobile was due to the ability to “be mobile” and driving the car is the largest part of that. When you are removed from the equation might as well take mass transit.

Plus think of all the millions of driving jobs that will be eliminated for low skilled/low IQ workers. I sure as hell don’t want an 18 wheeler with no driver barreling up behind me.

And how do these self-driving algorithms perform when it’s snowing, or in fog. I guess they’ll be programmed to just pull over to the curb and sit, leaving you stranded in the middle of timbuktu.

Desertrat
Desertrat

While I never had problems without ABS–and certainly did not on my race cars–I see no particular drawback. They seem to be quite useful on wet pavement, in my experience. No biggie.

But the last thing I’m interested in is a self-driving car, for sure. Nor would I ever buy an electric car.

I wonder if Big Nanny will outlaw motorcycles…

Full Retard
Full Retard
Maggie
Maggie

A friend of mine is sleeping with a man who is a “retired” border patrol/drug ops kind of guy (they never really retire) and he grew up in Arizona after having immigrated as a teen from Mexico.

He calls me Martha and the Vandellos because the Italian last name is hard to pronounce for him. It makes me laugh.

I just woke up from a dream in which I made cheesecake for several hundred people. It is 230 and that required some TBP time to calm me down.

Muzzle Blast
Muzzle Blast

In the world of self-driving cars controlled by the state grid, when you want to go grocery shopping but owe back taxes, does it take you to the supermarket and let you out or does it lock the doors and take you to the offices of the Dept. of Revenue to your waiting escort?

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