{"id":744,"date":"2013-07-01T09:20:00","date_gmt":"2013-06-30T23:20:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/reckoner.com.au\/?p=744"},"modified":"2013-07-25T16:30:01","modified_gmt":"2013-07-25T06:30:01","slug":"google-wants-to-drive-my-future","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/reckoner.com.au\/features\/google-wants-to-drive-my-future\/","title":{"rendered":"Google wants to drive my future"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"A3_WP\"<\/div>\n

I\u2019ve always loved driving. In fact I\u2019ve had an affinity for anything with wheels from the moment I learnt to sit up on my own, right through past my quarter-life crisis and into my early thirties.<\/span> Like most boys growing up I had my fair share of playing with Matchbox cars, remotely controlling my 80’s \u2018Jet Hopper\u2019 until the batteries went flat four minutes later, and built many, many lego and model cars. But while these were fun to play with, the real passion and obsession I have with cars developed when I grasped my very first steering wheel.<\/p>\n

\"BenMy very first car was a bright red Jeep pedal car my parents bought me for my first birthday. And straight away I was hooked. I spent hours, days, years in that thing. I would drive it around all day from one end of my parent\u2019s acreage property to the other and back again. It was my pride and joy. I loved and drove it so much that one day (when I was way too big to fit inside the driver\u2019s seat anymore) the body started to break in half and eventually the steering wheel snapped clean off the steering column.<\/p>\n

From there I worked up to BMX bikes, then to several mountain bikes\u2014all of which I rode into the ground until they eventually gave up. Then as I got older things with engines began to take my interest. It started with the ride-on mower. Now the 2.5 acre block I grew up on is not exactly flat with perfect green grass … in fact, it\u2019s the polar opposite of that\u2014a massive slope covered in trees, branches, stumps and scrubby tufts of grass. So when you think of me mowing an acreage property, don\u2019t think of a country club with tennis courts and chardonnay, think more like the variety bash or Dakar rally … just with a cutting deck. So I\u2019m pretty confident in saying I learnt many of my driving skills while trying not to drive the lawn mower down any embankments or into fences of barbed wire.<\/p>\n

‘I drove that 0.85 litre three cylinder engine like it was a Lamborghini Aventador.’<\/p>\n

When I was almost at the age of getting my learners, I used to back the family car down the long driveway to pick my little brother up from the school bus every afternoon. Then after getting my licence and driving my parents\u2019 cars around for about six months, I finally got the chance to buy a car of my own. It was a Daihatsu Handivan. It had two doors, two seats and tyres that looked like they were stolen from a BMX bike … but it was MY car, and I drove that 0.85 litre three cylinder engine like it was a Lamborghini Aventador.<\/p>\n

One night while stopped at an intersection, my \u2018dog box on wheels\u2019 got rammed by a Nissan Patrol with a trailer loaded full of pavers, bags of cement and a cement mixer. Though the car was mostly okay, I decided I needed a bigger and safer car. I went for another Daihatsu, this time a Pyzar. Although it looked a little unusual, the Pyzar was a great little car and my girlfriend (now wife) had many adventures and road trips in it during the seven years I owned it.<\/p>\n

\"Pyzar_WP\"<\/div>\n

And this brings us to the present day. I bought a twelve-month-old Audi A3 about five years ago, and it remains to this day one of my favourite cars that I\u2019ve ever driven. With its turbo-charged engine and six-speed DSG gearbox, it\u2019s pretty hard to beat the feeling of taking the A3 out onto a twisty country road letting it fly through the corners. This is when the car and I have our closest bond\u2014we\u2019re physically connected to each other and we\u2019re thinking and moving as one. It\u2019s like the car has become a giant metallic extension of my own arms and legs, allowing me to be faster, stronger and more powerful than I ever could be in my own body alone. And I love that feeling.<\/p>\n

For many people a car is simply an appliance, like a fridge or toaster, that simply gets them from point A to point B with greater convenience and speed than if they had to walk. Whereas for me my car is more than that. It\u2019s a reflection on my personality. I\u2019m proud that I\u2019m passionate about cars, and the car I choose to buy and the way I choose to drive it makes up part of who I am as a person.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Change is on the horizon.<\/h1>\n

So why have I told you all this? Well, if you\u2019re living in Australia and you own a car, there\u2019s a pretty high chance that you don\u2019t share my passion for getting behind the wheel.<\/p>\n

The top ten of new car models sold in April 2013<\/a>\u00a0(excluding trade vehicles including the Hilux, Navara and Ranger) were the Toyota Corolla, Mazda 3, Holden Cruze, Hyundai i30, Ford Focus, Holden Captiva and Toyota Camry. All of these cars are perfectly capable modes of transport: affordable, relatively comfortable and easy to drive. But they\u2019re not the types of cars that people who love to drive would buy.<\/p>\n

I appreciate our fridge. It keeps our food fresh, it\u2019s reliable and has never missed a beat. Our lives would be much worse if we didn\u2019t have it. But I don\u2019t have an emotional connection to it. If it burst into flames one day, we\u2019d throw it out and buy a new one without a second thought. And from what I\u2019ve observed, the greater majority of people these days have a similar feeling about their cars.<\/p>\n

\"Vette2_WP\"<\/div>\n

Even if we wind the clock back fifty years to the era of \u2018The Great Australian Dream\u2019 where the ultimate expression of success and security was home ownership, owning a car was simply part of that \u2018dream lifestyle\u2019. It was more about the freedom and status that car ownership provided rather than people having a passion for cars and driving as such.<\/p>\n

‘It\u2019s getting to the point where it\u2019s a national disgrace.’<\/p>\n

And you only need to observe people\u2019s driving habits in this country to realise pretty quickly that we\u2019re a nation of careless and disinterested drivers. People not indicating, not letting people in, people tailgating others, people sitting 10km\/h below the speed limit in the right-hand lane, road rage and people giving other drivers the middle finger … the list goes on forever. Not a day goes by that I don\u2019t see another person on the road who should have their licence immediately revoked and their car crushed. It\u2019s getting to the point where it\u2019s a national disgrace. One only needs to look to countries like Germany<\/a> to get an idea of how bad most drivers in Australia really are.\u00a0And I reckon car makers have cottoned on to this idea that most people are not interested nor highly skilled at driving, and as such are beginning to add a whole host of electronic driver aids and vehicle automation at an astonishing rate.<\/p>\n

\"Kluger_WP\"There are many cars on the market, for sale right now in Australia, that sport features such as automatic reverse parking, lane departure warning systems, blind spot notification lights, radar guided adaptive cruise control and automatic emergency braking systems just to name a few. These are all focused on safety and avoiding accidents, whereas many other automated features are more orientated towards driver convenience. These include: automatic headlights, automatic windscreen wipers, automatic climate control, keyless entry and engine starting, plus the ultimate in not having to lift a finger: hydraulic self-opening and self-closing tailgates, such as the ones fitted to top-of-the-range Toyota Klugers.<\/p>\n

Technology like this is only going to increase in the next few years. Audi are working on a system that you can switch on in stop-start traffic<\/a> that takes over accelerating, braking and steering. Cameras and radars watch the lines on the road to keep the car in your lane and also keep an eye on the car in front so that you avoid any nasty nose-to-tail prangs synonymous with peak hour traffic jams.\u00a0BMW are working on a system that\u2019s designed for boring highway driving<\/a> that does a similar job to the Audi system except at highway speeds.\u00a0Audi are also working on a self-parking car<\/a> where you can pull up at the entrance of a building or hotel, hop out, then using an App on your iPhone you can command your car to go and park itself in the parking lot … and then retrieve your car the same way upon your return.<\/p>\n

\"GoogleCar_WP\"<\/div>\n

Possibly the most significant step towards automotive automation however is Google\u2019s driverless car project<\/a>. For about two years now, Google have been testing a driverless car system where vehicles are fitted with about US$150,000 worth of equipment including a LIDAR (laser radar) system, and through mapping and other software the cars basically drive themselves. The software controls steering, accelerating and braking, while the LIDAR system looks out for other vehicles, pedestrians and other objects or obstructions. As of September 2012, three US states (Nevada, Florida and California) have passed laws permitting testing of \u2018autonomous cars<\/a>\u2019, though during testing all vehicles have had a driver that can take over from the computer at any time in the event of a malfunction.<\/p>\n

The video below shows the Google driverless car in action:<\/p>\n