Are we on the way to "black box" driving?

[RayPike]

Just thinking - with the increase of electric vehicles over the next 10 years and the increase of in-car tech and "driverless cars" there will come a point in the not too distant future where the revenue the government gets from fuel will significantly decline. They can't just whack on a load of tax to electricity as that also impacts granny no-car and that won't do. They can't just whack up all vehicle tax so it seems likely the only way forward will be a sort of "pay for the miles you drive" tax and the only way that can be reliably policed is by black boxes in every car, which also brings the implication that your speed record will be completely available to "those that have access" therefore any incident of speeding no matter when or where it happens will be recorded.

The end of driving as we know it?

[egomeister]

RayPike said:

Just thinking - with the increase of electric vehicles over the next 10 years and the increase of in-car tech and "driverless cars" there will come a point in the not too distant future where the revenue the government gets from fuel will significantly decline. They can't just whack on a load of tax to electricity as that also impacts granny no-car and that won't do. They can't just whack up all vehicle tax so it seems likely the only way forward will be a sort of "pay for the miles you drive" tax and the only way that can be reliably policed is by black boxes in every car, which also brings the implication that your speed record will be completely available to "those that have access" therefore any incident of speeding no matter when or where it happens will be recorded.

The end of driving as we know it?

Pretty much. I thin most electric vehicles have these systems anyway, and I know for sure that years ago there was a lot of research funding around for GPS monitoring systems tied into battery packs. I'd say PAYG charging is near inevitable.

[Dave Hedgehog]

its already being developed by the EU, and will be mandatory on EU cars

its first iteration will be to call the emergency services in the event of an accident

but the system has GPS and 4G connection and is being developed so that road pricing and auto setting speed limits can be done

http://www.theverge.com/2015/4/29/8512845/ecall-eu...

the eu has a website where they show the expansion of this system to do road pricing etc, but i dont have the link to hand

[andy_s]

Yes, along with the side tech of the driverless car advances and better GPS accuracy; 'hive' routing, speed limitation and collision avoidance.

In 30-40 years everyone on here will be regarded by the youth as quaint eccentrics that pine for the day they controlled a combustion engined car by their own hands and, ha - feet! - all by themselves. 'Silly old farts' they'll think as they are whisked away at 120mph on the new ultraways, doing the crossword as they go.

[Amused2death]

Years ago a Sunday afternoon drive was something that people did for fun, now, for a lot of people it's a chore to enable them to do something else. Ultimately the days of driving "just for the fun of it" are numbered.

Sad to say even I don't enjoy driving like I used to. Too many numpties.

[Cold]

andy_s said:

Yes, along with the side tech of the driverless car advances and better GPS accuracy; 'hive' routing, speed limitation and collision avoidance.

In 30-40 years everyone on here will be regarded by the youth as quaint eccentrics that pine for the day they controlled a combustion engined car by their own hands and, ha - feet! - all by themselves. 'Silly old farts' they'll think as they are whisked away at 120mph on the new ultraways, doing the crossword as they go.

Have you just described train travel?

[andy_s]

Cold said:

andy_s said:

Yes, along with the side tech of the driverless car advances and better GPS accuracy; 'hive' routing, speed limitation and collision avoidance.

In 30-40 years everyone on here will be regarded by the youth as quaint eccentrics that pine for the day they controlled a combustion engined car by their own hands and, ha - feet! - all by themselves. 'Silly old farts' they'll think as they are whisked away at 120mph on the new ultraways, doing the crossword as they go.

Have you just described train travel?

Flexi-train-taxi... If you look at how they are looking at mass driverless EV it is pretty much; but the train carriage comes to you and it then joins the bigger 'train' and detaches again to take you to your individual destination.

Taking things to their perhaps illogical conclusion, you could say it's the start of a new generation of mass transport.

[catso]

Cold said:

andy_s said:

Yes, along with the side tech of the driverless car advances and better GPS accuracy; 'hive' routing, speed limitation and collision avoidance.

In 30-40 years everyone on here will be regarded by the youth as quaint eccentrics that pine for the day they controlled a combustion engined car by their own hands and, ha - feet! - all by themselves. 'Silly old farts' they'll think as they are whisked away at 120mph on the new ultraways, doing the crossword as they go.

Have you just described train travel?

Even the trains here struggle with 120mph. Whatever form of dumbed-down driverless transport pods the Government give us won't be going fast because, as we all know that'll kill you.

Also slightly O/T but I recently renewed my car insurance, use of a comparison site gave me many offers from £200 upwards, there were some telematics aka Black-box, the cheapest of which was over £3,000....

Edited by catso on Thursday 27th April 16:04

[RayPike]

Having computers control everything will certainly be safer than the knuckle-dragging half-awake morons (mainly in BMWs) I seem to have driving half in my boot most mornings as I have the temerity to only be doing about 62mph on a NSL B road!

The change in driver habits (and maybe cars) will have to be enormous - if you WILL be caught for speeding (or cars know the limits and will not speed) then it may remove a lot of stress as you simply cannot go any faster anyway, so journey times will be more accurate (if slower). I suppose to start off with it may just be (max) vehicle speed that is controlled by computer and the drivers still steer?

Maybe they'll add collision avoidance systems to stop vehicles pulling out in front of others?

I can see issues in the "change over" period though where there is a mixture of old non-computer cars and new "smart" cars. There will have to be a fairly rapid phasing out of "dumb cars" I'd have thought as otherwise there would be chaos with driver-controlled cars bullying the computer-controlled ones!

I feel a feature film script coming on ;-)

[Engineer792]

It's been rumoured that the current push for smart meters is in order to enable them to charge you more for the electricity used for charging your car

[esxste]

At a certain point, owning a car will be uneconomic for most.

You'll request the car to pick you up and take you to your destination; like a taxi, but without the awkward conversation with the driver.

The Government will charge a tax on your journey, or charge the car operators for licenses to operate.

The question is how those of us who enjoy driving will fit in when the roads are filled with purely A.I. driven cars.

[2gins]

I've always thought the best way to charge by the mile without the civil liberties issues is to just use the MOT system. OK there are gaps for new cars and changes of ownership but these should be very simple to overcome.

[grumbledoak]

These people aren't very interested in civil liberties. They have a "Me Too" White Elephant satellite system to justify, an urge to control, and an icon of independence and freedom to destroy. You can already see the dominoes lining up.

[sonnenschein3000]

There's been a war on petrolheads for years. IMO it all started with the introduction of catalytic converters requiring the use of unleaded fuel requiring lower compression ratios. Then came in the whole diesels are better for the environment thing (at the time when diesels were rubbish). Now that diesels have up to 400hp+ (e.g. new M550d) with launch control and are really good fun for those who like cars, lets start calling them bad again (I know the politicans are talking about targeting only those before Euro 6 at the moment, but i'm sure they'll find something to say diesels are still bad) - combined with the changes in road tax which has in effect taken away the element of benefit that the diesels had in terms of CO2 (for road tax bands) compared to their petrol counterparts.

So hybrids are good right? Well no, the prius is good according to politicans. Boring, cheap family car that everyone can afford. Then the 918 Spyder happened. But they don't sell these in numbers so thats fine right?....... but you just wait until the M5 hybrid happens, or the M3 hybrid that can do 0-60 in 3.1 seconds. The C63 AMG in mostly hybrid form. The RS5 in hybrid form. That's when batteries will suddenly be un-environmentally friendly, or something.

The war is against the petrolhead. They will not give up until everyone gets into a metal box, which all look the same, and are automatically driven by a computer.

Because ultimately, its things like personal expression, personal enjoyment and personal display of wealth that really irritates politicans.

Edited by sonnenschein3000 on Thursday 27th April 18:18

[RayPike]

So if we end up with homogenised cars with black box controlled speed limits, will there still be a market for supercars? Private track days aren't really going to create enough demand.

[sonnenschein3000]

RayPike said:

So if we end up with homogenised cars with black box controlled speed limits, will there still be a market for supercars? Private track days aren't really going to create enough demand.

The leftie feminist ecomentalist sort will celebrate them going into the history books as egotistical environment-killing life-endangering machines.

If that sounds ridiculous, the same sort made the pg. 3 newspaper girls go away...

[speedking31]

esxste said:

At a certain point, owning a car will be uneconomic for most. You'll request the car to pick you up and take you to your destination; like a taxi, ...

That option is available now, but hardly anyone takes it up. Why would the advent of autonomous cars make that model more economical and convenient?

[grumbledoak]

speedking31 said:

Why would the advent of autonomous cars make that model more economical and convenient?

It won't. We will be forced to pay more for the less economical option, just as we are being forced to pay more for "Green" energy.

[2gins]

My God. I'm not having a dig at you fellows but I thought I was cynical!

[anonymous-user]

Dave Hedgehog said:

its already being developed by the EU, and will be mandatory on EU cars

its first iteration will be to call the emergency services in the event of an accident

but the system has GPS and 4G connection and is being developed so that road pricing and auto setting speed limits can be done

http://www.theverge.com/2015/4/29/8512845/ecall-eu...

the eu has a website where they show the expansion of this system to do road pricing etc, but i dont have the link to hand

Would be very interested to see that link, there are constant rumours about eCall but most of it seems to come from bad tabloid reporting or tinfoil hatters so some actual information would be good to see.

eCall is not capable of vehicle tracking or speed monitoring, it only becomes active in the event of an accident or user activation (e.g. by pressing a SOS button)

http://ec.europa.eu/newsroom/dae/document.cfm?doc_...