Car transporters

UK PROFESSIONAL DRIVERS FORUMS THE UK PROFESSIONAL DRIVERS FORUM (INTERACTIVE)
41

UKtramp:

bob96:
Who is going to want to spend a load of money on a driverless car in the first place

OOh PULEEEZE

He might have a point, well sort of, once we’re all being whisked around in our self driving pods, without any input from us why would we go and buy a new pod if the one we have works?

Most car advertising is all about how it makes us feel as a driver, (ok many of us just buy something that does the job), there are many who go out and buy new cars and the many more who desire them, because of the image they feel they portray about them, but the self driving pod could really becomes no more desirable than a washing machine or a dishwasher, how many people go out and buy one of those if they have one that’s already doing a perfectly adequate job.

Even some high tech gear if suffering from buyer apathy after initial enthusiasm, mobiles phones are an example users have found their existing product has all the features it needs, so despite the best efforts of the marketing departments users aren’t replacing their phones at the rate they used to? Once the technology gets to a level that it fits most peoples needs, in terms of range, ease of use, features and reliability and the market has been saturated, so very few new buyers to sell to, I think the marketing departments are going to have to work far hard to convince people to regularly replace their autonomous vehicle.

Also I’ve seen other concepts for Autonomous vehicles, where as individuals we don’t own the vehicle, at present many vehicles are parked up for many hours a day while people are at home or at work, the space required for this is vast, the idea of some developers is you call up a vehicle when needed from a central pool, then when you don’t need it, it goes to other jobs, or parks at a central pool away from the immediate area leaving that high value land available for more buildings or means driveways and roads in residential areas aren’t full of parked cars, interesting concept as this is, especially the clear residential roads, a pool of vehicles probably requires fewer units than individual car ownership and why would you pay for regular replacement of vehicles you don’t own and you don’t have on your driveway or office car park to show off?

42

All good points Muckles. Isn’t your last description of the car pool the aim of Uber? The taxi app is a stopgap. Don’t they want to do away with their “meat puppets” (drivers)

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43

Franglais:
All good points Muckles. Isn’t your last description of the car pool the aim of Uber? The taxi app is a stopgap. Don’t they want to do away with their “meat puppets” (drivers)

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Yes Uber is one, basically the idea is to bring a public transport service, with the advantages of the car, that is freedom when and where you travel and having your own individual area, no having to be with people you don’t want to be with.
I believe some are looking at more like a vehicle pool owned by a group of people, this has already been tried in some cities with cars.

44

If you look at car advertising now only that for performance brands emphasise driving. Most run of the mill cars talk of comfy seats, WiFi, looks and utmost how they make you feel.
Most now want a fashionable car to feed their ego, they don’t give a shot how it drives. Look and see how many lovely driving cars have been fitted with cheap ditchfinder tyres for proof.

45

Munchkin:
If you look at car advertising now only that for performance brands emphasise driving. Most run of the mill cars talk of comfy seats, WiFi, looks and utmost how they make you feel.
Most now want a fashionable car to feed their ego, they don’t give a shot how it drives. Look and see how many lovely driving cars have been fitted with cheap ditchfinder tyres for proof.

Sorry I probably shouldn’t have used the work driver, but buyer instead.
However when the car becomes detached from the buyer, either as a pool car or just a pod to transport you, then you loose the emotional link, this will change the reasons you’d buy a car.
This is not an entirely bad thing, you could attribute a lot of the aggressive driving to people whose ego’s are linked to their choice of car, but I think it represents a challenge to the marketing departments and therefore companies who will make personal transport units, like manufacturers are finding with some hi tech products, once you’ve made a product that has all the features that the user could desire and only the ■■■■■■■■ buyers feel the need to upgrade just because you’ve tweaked a feature, how will you convince them to replace their working functional product with a new one at regular intervals?

46

muckles:

Munchkin:
If you look at car advertising now only that for performance brands emphasise driving. Most run of the mill cars talk of comfy seats, WiFi, looks and utmost how they make you feel.
Most now want a fashionable car to feed their ego, they don’t give a shot how it drives. Look and see how many lovely driving cars have been fitted with cheap ditchfinder tyres for proof.

Sorry I probably shouldn’t have used the work driver, but buyer instead.
However when the car becomes detached from the buyer, either as a pool car or just a pod to transport you, then you loose the emotional link, this will change the reasons you’d buy a car.
This is not an entirely bad thing, you could attribute a lot of the aggressive driving to people whose ego’s are linked to their choice of car, but I think it represents a challenge to the marketing departments and therefore companies who will make personal transport units, like manufacturers are finding with some hi tech products, once you’ve made a product that has all the features that the user could desire and only the ■■■■■■■■ buyers feel the need to upgrade just because you’ve tweaked a feature, how will you convince them to replace their working functional product with a new one at regular intervals?

It seems obvious that there is a line where many people not only like the convenience of cars but also driving them.Take the latter away then the choice between the ‘car’ or the bus becomes much more blurred.IE is the automated pod going to be much use for someone who likes to drive a reasonable sized SUV or big estate.The ultimate example being the choice between E55 Merc estate v robot pod v bus.When it’s obvious that there’s not much difference between the latter two choices with neither of them being able to do the job of the big quick estate or even generic lower performance SUV types.

As I said Dr Damon’s ideas would take out a massive proportion of the potential car market with it being doubtful if manufacturers like Audi/BMW/Jaguar or even the volume sector could survive the hit as many of their customers walk away on the basis of might as well use the bus and save the costs of the silly,good for nothing,boring,robot washing machine on wheels.

Having said that assuming that the freedom of choice to use either type remains and it’s not a matter of compulsion then obviously ignore all the above.While if it’s a matter of compulsion then I’d guess that just worrying about the loss of freedom to drive what we please will be the least of our problems in that nightmare world. :bulb:

47

Carryfast:

muckles:

Munchkin:
If you look at car advertising now only that for performance brands emphasise driving. Most run of the mill cars talk of comfy seats, WiFi, looks and utmost how they make you feel.
Most now want a fashionable car to feed their ego, they don’t give a shot how it drives. Look and see how many lovely driving cars have been fitted with cheap ditchfinder tyres for proof.

Sorry I probably shouldn’t have used the work driver, but buyer instead.
However when the car becomes detached from the buyer, either as a pool car or just a pod to transport you, then you loose the emotional link, this will change the reasons you’d buy a car.
This is not an entirely bad thing, you could attribute a lot of the aggressive driving to people whose ego’s are linked to their choice of car, but I think it represents a challenge to the marketing departments and therefore companies who will make personal transport units, like manufacturers are finding with some hi tech products, once you’ve made a product that has all the features that the user could desire and only the ■■■■■■■■ buyers feel the need to upgrade just because you’ve tweaked a feature, how will you convince them to replace their working functional product with a new one at regular intervals?

It seems obvious that there is a line where many people not only like the convenience of cars but also driving them.Take the latter away then the choice between the ‘car’ or the bus becomes much more blurred.IE is the automated pod going to be much use for someone who likes to drive a reasonable sized SUV or big estate.The ultimate example being the choice between E55 Merc estate v robot pod v bus.When it’s obvious that there’s not much difference between the latter two choices with neither of them being able to do the job of the big quick estate or even generic lower performance SUV types.

As I said Dr Damon’s ideas would take out a massive proportion of the potential car market with it being doubtful if manufacturers like Audi/BMW/Jaguar or even the volume sector could survive the hit as many of their customers walk away on the basis of might as well use the bus and save the costs of the silly,good for nothing,boring,robot washing machine on wheels.

Having said that assuming that the freedom of choice to use either type remains and it’s not a matter of compulsion then obviously ignore all the above.While if it’s a matter of compulsion then I’d guess that just worrying about the loss of freedom to drive what we please will be the least of our problems in that nightmare world. :bulb:

My use of the word pod, is really just to get away from the idea of cars as we know it, the pod could be any size to suit the application, in fact in the pool car example, you could order the vehicle that suited you needs for the job you required, so maybe an individual pod for the journey to work and a bigger pod for a run to the shops and a really big pod for a trip away with the family.

As for it not being better than the bus, as I said, the main problems with mass transit systems are being stuck with fixed routes and timetables and having to share the space with strangers, the pooled transport system doesn’t have either of those disadvantages, it does have some other downsides I’ll admit, but so does personal car ownership, especially in urban areas, as many households now try and fit multiple vehicles in areas built before car ownership was thought of.

Yes there are still many people who actually enjoy driving, including myself, but then many others who don’t, especially when they’re stuck in miles of slow moving traffic on their daily commute to work, it hardly lives up to the image portrayed by the advertisers, judging by what many of them are doing most would be happier to let the car drive, so they could go onto the internet or do some work or play some computer game or just get an extra hour or 2 of sleep.

Personally for me a nightmare world would be one where I’d have to commute round the M25 or any other of our major motorways that skirt large areas of population or into any large town or city by car everyday, wasting hours of my life in traffic in a situation where I can do nothing else to pass the time and as I’d be commuting I wouldn’t even be getting paid for wasting those hours of my time.

Jay Leno, somebody known for his love of cars, has said he see’s a positive future for older internal combustion engine cars if electric and automation takes over, he has likened it to the demise of the horse as an everyday method of transport, the horse hasn’t disappeared from society, in fact horses are better looked after now than they were when they were just a tool for a job, as they are owned by people who love them and meet with like minded people, the same could happen for cars, maybe though only being allowed on racetracks and special road sections, where you could test you skill and really push yours and the vehicles limits without risking the lives of people who don’t want to be involved.

48

Muckles’s last paragraph is how I see it going. Petrol v8s on a track and diesel 4x4s in the mud. Ultimately there will be no place for human controlled road vehicles. Especially in urban environments. Not for a while maybe, but quicker than many would believe. And I won’t put more of a time frame on it than that.

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49

AndieHyde:
All this autonomy is very well, but removing humans in the name of efficency is only going to destroy the current business model. If no one has a job, they have no money. So who will be able to afford these consumer goods?

the wealthy,who already have money,the rest of us don’t count

50

I was born in 1963,i loved growing up in that era,then the millennium came and my time that I loved was gone,progress,now we are going to get driverless lorries,progress again,and now cars that will deliver themselves,progress again,i bloody hate progress unfortunately there is nothing anyone can do about it,what will happen when all this happens,we as drivers will be on the scrapheap,i myself am too old to retrain,driving is all I know,and if you do retrain will employers want older people to work for them,the only people that will benefit is the wealthy,seems we are slowly going back to the Victorian era,seems that’s what the government want in my opinion,the working class tipping their hats or touching their forelocks to the rich[mind you the second part would be hard for a baldy like me,lol]

51

Franglais:
Muckles’s last paragraph is how I see it going. Petrol v8s on a track and diesel 4x4s in the mud. Ultimately there will be no place for human controlled road vehicles. Especially in urban environments. Not for a while maybe, but quicker than many would believe. And I won’t put more of a time frame on it than that.

I’d guess that muckles’ view is,possibly naively,closer to the idea of it all remaining a matter of freedom of choice regardless of on road use or not ?.While yours seems closer to Dr Damon’s which seems to be a matter of compulsion which is a totally different scenario that’s closer to the nightmare control freak world I was referring to.IE I for one would rather use the bus/train and save the cash wasted on a robotised washing machine on wheels which has taken out the pleasure of driving anyway.Bearing in mind that even at worse I’d still rather drive in urban areas than not.On that note I was happy enough with years of commuting often in the traffic between here and Feltham with a manual Triumph 2.5 PI and manual Granada 2.8i for example.While it’s going to be bleedin difficult to justify all the costs of keeping and transporting a ‘proper’ car which can only be used off road.Although using the bus instead of expensive robot washing machine on wheels can only help in that regard.

IE this is all about the clear questions will we still be able to drive the vehicle of our choice as and where we please.Or will it be a case of the Demolition Man type scenario of only compulsory use of an expensive boring robot EV being allowed on the roads ?.That’s all that really matters here.With it being obvious which way people will vote with their wallets ‘if’ it’s a case of the former.Bearing in mind the issue of people supposedly not valuing the freedom and pleasure of actually driving seems to be massively ( deliberately ? ) over estimated and while we might moan about the worst aspects of driving,that’s still better than some control freak telling us that we can’t drive anything anywhere which is what this really seems to be all about. :bulb:

52

Carryfast:

Franglais:
Muckles’s last paragraph is how I see it going. Petrol v8s on a track and diesel 4x4s in the mud. Ultimately there will be no place for human controlled road vehicles. Especially in urban environments. Not for a while maybe, but quicker than many would believe. And I won’t put more of a time frame on it than that.

On that note I was happy enough with years of commuting often in the traffic between here and Feltham with a manual Triumph 2.5 PI and manual Granada 2.8i for example.

And assuming most of the time you couldn’t use the power of handling of those cars, what exactly was the pleasure in crawling through urban traffic? However if you enjoy it so much, maybe on your time off you could find some like minded people and find a piece of tarmac and all sit in a traffic jam together. :open_mouth:

Carryfast:
While it’s going to be bleedin difficult to justify all the costs of keeping and transporting a ‘proper’ car which can only be used off road.

Surely no worse than those people who now transport classic cars to shows and race tracks, it will become a leisure activity not a necessity.

Carryfast:
IE this is all about the clear questions will we still be able to drive the vehicle of our choice as and where we please.Or will it be a case of the Demolition Man type scenario of only compulsory use of an expensive boring robot EV being allowed on the roads ?.That’s all that really matters here.With it being obvious which way people will vote with their wallets ‘if’ it’s a case of the former.Bearing in mind the issue of people supposedly not valuing the freedom and pleasure of actually driving seems to be massively ( deliberately ? ) over estimated and while we might moan about the worst aspects of driving,that’s still better than some control freak telling us that we can’t drive anything anywhere which is what this really seems to be all about. :bulb:

It might not be forced on people, more likely car ownership will fizzle out, like carriage driving didn’t die out over night with the introduction of the car and commercial vehicle.
A new generation might be less interested in driving for transportation, when they can spend that time doing something far more productive while being transported to their destination.
Those that are interested in driving will do it as a hobby, a bit like those who have a modern bike or car for track use only. I know people who never ride a motorbike on the road and people who have high powered cars they never use on the road, they see no point in doing so as you can’t get anywhere near the limits of the vehicle on the public roads without risking your licence or having to deal with other road users, many of whom are just not interested in driving and probably aren’t really concentrating on what they are doing. Why do you think the Nordschleife is so popular, especially it seems from my last visit to there with British drivers?

53

muckles:

Carryfast:
On that note I was happy enough with years of commuting often in the traffic between here and Feltham with a manual Triumph 2.5 PI and manual Granada 2.8i for example.

And assuming most of the time you couldn’t use the power of handling of those cars, what exactly was the pleasure in crawling through urban traffic? However if you enjoy it so much, maybe on your time off you could find some like minded people and find a piece of tarmac and all sit in a traffic jam together. :open_mouth:

Carryfast:
While it’s going to be bleedin difficult to justify all the costs of keeping and transporting a ‘proper’ car which can only be used off road.

Surely no worse than those people who now transport classic cars to shows and race tracks, it will become a leisure activity not a necessity.

Carryfast:
IE this is all about the clear questions will we still be able to drive the vehicle of our choice as and where we please.Or will it be a case of the Demolition Man type scenario of only compulsory use of an expensive boring robot EV being allowed on the roads ?.That’s all that really matters here.With it being obvious which way people will vote with their wallets ‘if’ it’s a case of the former.Bearing in mind the issue of people supposedly not valuing the freedom and pleasure of actually driving seems to be massively ( deliberately ? ) over estimated and while we might moan about the worst aspects of driving,that’s still better than some control freak telling us that we can’t drive anything anywhere which is what this really seems to be all about. :bulb:

It might not be forced on people, more likely car ownership will fizzle out, like carriage driving didn’t die out over night with the introduction of the car and commercial vehicle.
A new generation might be less interested in driving for transportation, when they can spend that time doing something far more productive while being transported to their destination.
Those that are interested in driving will do it as a hobby, a bit like those who have a modern bike or car for track use only. I know people who never ride a motorbike on the road and people who have high powered cars they never use on the road, they see no point in doing so as you can’t get anywhere near the limits of the vehicle on the public roads without risking your licence or having to deal with other road users, many of whom are just not interested in driving and probably aren’t really concentrating on what they are doing. Why do you think the Nordschleife is so popular, especially it seems from my last visit to there with British drivers?

Firstly the 1970’s and 80’s at least was a different world with a much more relaxed attitude to speed even in 30 mph areas let alone what was then far more NSL parts of that journey.So plenty of scope to use the power of those types to the point where the Triumph was arguably often borderline on power.While it was the brakes which were more the limiting factor with the Granada especially on early 3-4 am finish times on nights. :smiling_imp: :laughing: While as I’ve said no real problem to just crawl through the heavier trafficked bits like the approaches to Hampton Court Bridge at the wrong times of day.While now it’s no problem to just drive the Zafira,which is more or less as powerful as the Triumph was,at a much more sedate pace to suit the new speed regime and the resulting dumbed down antics of others from pedestrians to bus drivers.On that note I’d still rather drive a proper car under the much stricter speed regime and similar traffic conditions varying from sometimes empty roads,to sometimes a gridlocked crawl depending on time and place,than not.

In which case if it’s not going to be forced on anyone I don’t see any issues in that those with my views can/will continue to use vehicles as we’ve always done.

However I don’t think that’s the agenda here.In that those like Dr Damon etc intend to force proper cars etc and those who prefer to drive them,off the roads.Which is a totally different matter. :bulb: