Emerging Technologies Blog

A lot of discussion on here's been about shared fleets, ownership, car industry declining etc. but what about self-driving performance cars, will we ever get them? I know about the driverless Audi R8, what an awesome car that is.

On here someone wrote:

Keep in mind they'll be half the size. They'll go slower. They'll be driven gently. As fleet vehicles they'll be well maintained by in-house mechanics.. They'll be electric and have fewer moving parts-no transmission, no dirty oil gumming up the engine. A lot of the wear and tear on a conventional car happens while it's sitting still, as it does for 95% of it's 18 year life span. These will be utilitarian vehicles with little to fetishize and up sell, they certainly won't be high performance.

I just hope someone continues making sports cars. Can't really be called hypocritical here, I own two of them, a Dodge Avenger SXT (daily driver), Toyota MR2 (second car) and I've owned a Nissan 300ZX in the past which was cool, great to drive.

Wouldn't mind having a self-driving sports car, even if I did have to set it to whatever the default speed was on the road, but could drive it myself on the track etc. I hope there's no self-driving motorbikes next - one of my friends is very into his biker-related activities.

At least NASCAR won't have self-driving race cars, we hope. Too many people on here say these things: "You won't need to own a car any more." Why bother owning when you can ride-share? But, the basic thing is, people want to own a car, regardless of cost, that's why sports cars are popular, they present an image.

A self-driving sports car is the equivalent of Ben Johnson; it's not going to run down the local 7-11 or Tesco's at track speeds every day (heh, heh, imagine Ben Johnson in his track gear sprinting to and from the mall), it'll be a relaxed, speed-controlled drive until you get to the track. The auto industry needs saving, and it's in demand, whether people on here like it or not.

Yes, Netflix is probably damaging theaters, but AFAIK cinema and Netflix co-exist quite well. I ain't calling for self-driving cars to be banned, but why not allow both manual and self-driven to exist on the same roads? I'm no psychology expert, but the "I'm the man, I'm in control" attitude has been around since the days of those who drove the earliest horse-and-cart, and probably Ancient Egypt (my 15 yr old son chose to write about that for his high school project).

This Audi A7 drove from San Francisco to Vegas without a drive

I'm not against self-driving cars, hell, my mother-in-law wants one, and has actually wrote to GM asking for a self-driving Chevy Malibu (which us Brits don't have over here anyway, the Chevy that is); she can't drive anymore for medical reasons, but loved driving, said an autonomous car was "the next best thing". I'm in St. Paul, in the Twin Cities now (on holiday, but then again, it's to see family, I live in the UK), somewhere that's discussing self-driven cars on CBS Local, google that for yourself.

Incidentally, my son does want to drive when he's old enough to in two years time, despite what some people think of kids his age, he said Uber was shire, would only use it if he had to. He said many of the kids in his class want to drive, but can't afford to, only use ride-sharing because it's supposedly the "in thing". This isn't scientific research, obviously.

Should there be self-driving performance cars, and who would want one? I sure as hell would want that self-driving Audi R8 if I could have it.

Credit goes to thrv229xhvt