Tag Archives: self-driving cars

Doug Casey on Electric and Self-Driving Vehicles, Part I

Posted on October 13, 2019 | Leave a comment

Doug Casey is more bullish on electric and self-driving cars than Eric Peters. From Casey at caseyresearch.com:

Chris’ note: We’re in the middle of a revolutionary trend…

As we’ve been showing you, the car industry is rapidly changing because of two growing technologies: electric vehicles (EVs) and self-driving cars.

EVs aren’t like traditional vehicles. They run on electricity instead of gasoline or diesel.

Not long ago, just a few hundred of these vehicles existed. Now, there are nearly 5.1 million EVs on the roads… and that number grows by the day.

And self-driving cars are only becoming more popular as well. By next year, estimates say there’ll be 10 million self-driving cars in use.

In short, these technologies are the future. Even our founder, Doug Casey, thinks so. And when Doug gets excited about something, I get him on the phone to find out why.

Read on to see what Doug has to say about this megatrend… and don’t miss tomorrow’s Dispatch, when Doug and I finish this important discussion…

Chris: Doug, you’ve mentioned how electric vehicles [EVs] will become a huge deal. What makes you say that?

Doug: There’s no doubt that electric vehicles are going to put an end to the internal combustion engine [ICE]. I want to not only explain why – but some related changes that are much bigger, that almost nobody has thought about.

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If They Can’t Get Traffic Lights to Sync…, by Eric Peters

Posted on March 27, 2018 | Leave a comment

Eric Peters is skeptical about self-driving cars. From Peters at theburningplatform.com:

They can’t even get automated traffic lights to work – to sync the green/red cycles in order to smooth the flow of traffic – but we’re supposed to believe that millions of automated cars are going to sync perfectly, whizz along at 100 MPH in tight formation, without a hitch – just like the Blue Angels, the Navy’s precision flying demonstration squadron.

In the rain and snow. The heat of high summer, the bitter cold of January. Dirt, sand, potholes. 24/7, year ’round – for year after year after year, ongoing. Mechanical and electrical components will never wear out – or crap out, unexpectedly.

Really?

Traffic lights are pretty simple things – even the “smart” ones that have cameras and sensors with which they can “see” traffic (just like automated cars). But coordinating lights to go green at the same time – instead of one going green and then the next one just ahead going red, causing needless stop-and-go traffic congestion – seems to be a bridge too far for the same technocrats who promise a seamless, Blue Angles-like automated car experience.

Even when traffic lights are successfully synced, they rarely remain synced for long.

Something always goes wrong. A power outage scrambles their brains. A software/programming/hardware glitch upsets the apple cart. The timing gets jumbled. Red light, green light, red light.

Stop – and go.

But at least you can stop (and go).

For now.

Your current autonomous car – the one controlled by you – still has brake/accelerator pedals and a steering wheel.

Your Future Car may not. The idea being to automatethose functions, in order to take away your autonomy.

The good news is that it’ll probably work about as well as automated traffic lights.

Leavings aside the emasculation that automated cars would impose on us – male and female alike – by depriving us of the ability to control our vehicles, which would mean a return to childhood, a time when our parents took us places and we sat in the back and had little to no say in the matter – there is the false assumption about the omniscience and perfection of automated vehicle technology.

To continue reading: If They Can’t Get Traffic Lights to Sync…

 

 

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

Posted on April 28, 2016 | Leave a comment

If you don’t control yout self-driving car, who does? The government, of course! From Eric Peters on a guest post at theburningplatform.com:

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.

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.

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

To continue reading: Why The Hard-Sell For the “Self-Driving” Car?

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