4 wheel drive is something needed for those of us who live/work/play in the sand or snow. Not everyone lives in the bubble of the city. I don’t know about you, but it is certainly enjoyable to……enjoy nature.

Though, I certainly won’t turn down a better car with nifty gizmos.

Another concern is that most drivers treat the technology (particularly speed and handling) as a kind of Arms Race in the never ending Cold War to get one or two spots ahead of the “enemy” during their daily commute. As a result, they constantly push the technology to its limits, no matter how dangerous, illegal, futile or irrational it is to do so. With each advancement, the potential for destruction increases as well. (more mass and acceleration = more force of impact)

As automobile technology develops and as cars continue to multiply, roads will become increasingly frustrating and dangerous. I gave up my beloved standard for an automatic, just because driving it in ever worsening traffic became unbearable. Eventually, if private automobiles are to remain palatable, technology must slowly reduce drivers to mere passengers. Ultimately, these passengers will step into their personal cocoon, announce their destination, sit back and play with all the techno-toys automakers have installed to entice people into buying cars because automobile technologies and the sheer impenetrable volume of traffic have made driving boring and tedious. Once on the road, these future cars will move in formation, automatically adjusting to avoid crowding or jeopardizing the safety of their fellow passenger cars. To the outside observer, it may resemble watching trains travelling down tracks. The main difference would be that each passenger has his own car and his own engine and that the whole process occupies a lot more space than a train.

At that point, one has to wonder what the point of car ownership is. I think the auto manufacturers figured this out a long time ago. They know they can’t maintain a thriving business by selling truly safe, practical, environmentally friendly, transportation to individuals. Not only is that not very sexy, in order to do that, you’ll eventually have to take the steering wheel out of the hands of its owners and turn roadways into virtual railways. If people wanted what amounts to quasi-mass transportation, they’d already be taking the subway at a fraction of the cost. No. In order to make money, car makers will continue to sell vehicles that capitalize on our primitive desires for status, speed, strength and the urge to get ahead of the other guy at all costs.

Detroit stopped building “personal mobility” over half a century ago and will resist utility and practicality as much as possible. As a result, fully automated cars won’t be on the road until 30 years after the technology is perfected. (The Japanese are halfway there.) Perhaps by then, we’ll have stopped building cities around cars and we’ll build them around people instead. As much as I love my car, I can’t stand driving it to work every day. Driving the streets is a lot like being trapped in a stadium full of American Idol contestants. It’s jam packed with annoying idiots who think they’re hot stuff and it makes me want to blow my brains out.

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I mean in a few years many people will be able to plug-in their cars at night and charge them from their solar panels that were absorbing sunlight during the day. Now certain cars slow down when approaching other cars, so maybe in a few years we can have more cars helping us to avoid accidents all together.

Cars may not be automated to the point that they could drive us to and from work by 2018, but it’s definitely possible that certain auto makers will be closer to that concept by then.