I wonder for how long there will be top class professional racing. The autonomous 'driverless' car is more advanced than any layman could have guessed a couple of years ago. Established manufacturers were playing their cards close to their chest but the fact that Google and Apple are developing them has changed the game.
When Tesla first made cars, the company was widely viewed as another eccentric marque, of which there are several every year. Not only has Tesla made huge advances in electric cars, it has made great strides in autonomous vehicles. Production is currently 1,000+ cars a week and an upcoming, less expensive model, has received a huge number of deposits.
There was a recent fatal accident in autopilot mode, but it appears from early reports that the driver was not following instructions. It is tough on his family, but the circumstances of the accident will assist programming.
Norway has announced that cars with internal combustion engines will not be sold there after 2025, yet Norway's wealth comes from North Sea oil. The Nethrlands may follow Norway's example.
At present, most electricity is produced using fossil fuels, which are finite. Your electric car may be clean but emissions are created elsewhere, in power stations, while fossil fuels are used to make every part of a car. Power stations, however, are more fuel efficient than cars.
At the beginning of the 20th Century, electric and steam cars were more advanced than the internal combustion engine. Electric cars, however, had limited range and steam cars took time to prepare. Petrol engines won because they were the most convenient and so received the most intense development.
In 1901 Ferdinand Porsche designed the Lohner-Porsche Mixte, a petrol-electric hybrid which had electric motors within the hubs of two, or four, wheels which, in the latter configuration gave four wheel drive. Progress was thwarted by the unreliability of gears and couplings available at the time and there was not the impetus to develop the support technology.
When Count Vicenzo Florio (creator of the Targa Florio) visited Paris, he bought one of the new automobiles and shipped it home to Sicily. He had, however, overlooked a crucial point, nobody in Sicily sold petrol so he had to import cans of the stuff.
Pioneer motorists everywhere had to buy petrol in cans from pharmacies or hardware shops. The first filling station did not appear until December, 1913, in Pittsburgh by which time there were millions of cars and more than a thousand makers had come and gone.
Filling stations were soon everywhere and even villages had a pump. A similar growth could occur with battery-powered cars, where the entire pack is changed (many battery packs are now leased from manufacturers).
Many manufacturers are experimenting with hydrogen cells which have been known since 1838. There has not been the imperative to develop them until recently, technology often needs a kick. For an automotive application, the main problems have been reduction in size and the efficient production of hydrogen and its safe storage and transfer to a vehicle.
At present there are few hydrogen stations, but if there is money to be made, hydrogen fuelling will follow.
At the recent Goodwood Festival of Speed there was displayed a hydrogen cell prototype from a new company called Riversimple which is looking for crowdfunding. Two claims stood out for me, one was the refuelling time of three minutes, the other was the range of 300 miles.
Electric cars are on their way and Formula E has been more successful than many, including me, predicted. Autonomous cars are inevitable and one day people will look back and wonder how we could possibly have tolerated the carnage on our roads, as we wonder how boys could once have been sent up chimneys to sweep them.
We admire top drivers because of their skill, as we admire star performers in any area. Most of us have kicked a ball so we can connect with top footballers. We have sung at some time, and danced, so we can relate to exceptional singers and dancers. Stars are people who do things that we wish we could do whether it is to cook or tell jokes.
The Rio Olympics is almost on us and there will be gold medals awarded for events about which most of us could not care less except for nationalist reasons. A top pole vaulter is a star to few people because few of us aspire to do it.
A little over a hundred years ago, the horse reigned supreme and there was a pecking order among drivers as there is with cars today. A sporting gentleman drove a two-wheeled curricle with a matched pair of horses and Jane Austen was specific about this when, in 'Sense And Sensibility' she wanted to present an aspect of Mr Willoughy - he drove the equivalent of a Ferrari or McLaren. Today horse-drawn carriages in the West are used for pleasure rides though there are competitions for carriage driving.
In 2005, the FIA sold the rights to Formula One for a hundred years. It is unlikely the sport will last that long except as an amusing reminder of how things once were, like steam trains run by enthusiasts.
Motoring enthusiasts are not going to give up their special cars, but we are seeing the rise and spread of the track-day car, some of which are not even road-legal.
The motor car is unique in that governments can use it for taxes and control its use. In Britain, there was a time when there was no upper speed limit, or alcohol limit, and when seat belts were not mandatory. In the UK, in 1966, there were 7,985 fatalities; now with many times more vehicles, there are fewer than 2,000. Government is committed to lower that figure and the autonomous car looks promising - it will not tail-gate, exceed the speed limit, or make obscene gestures to other cars.
Fuel supply is a sensitive political issue and is likely to become more so with the growth of car ownership in China, India and Russia. All-electric cars in Britain are more expensive than petrol-powered cars, but the government subsidises each purchase to the tune of £5,000.
We have seen the public in some countries become more sensitive to environmental issues and it was not that long ago that leaded petrol was removed from garage forecourts. Pollution charges in some cities were greeted by howls of protest, now they are accepted.
It took a very short time for automotive power to replace the horse, the coming revolution will be even quicker. Consider computers. Thirty years ago there were outfits tuning car suspensions with Sinclair Spectrum computers which had only 128K memory, and they made a difference. The suspension of the Aston Martin Bulldog Group C car was tuned, by Ray Mallock, with a Sinclair Spectrum.
Thirty years ago a mobile phone was the size of a brick and they did nothing except make and receive phone calls.
Quite apart from the inevitable changes in technology, there is the matter of identifying with a sport. My four year old grandson is a typical boy who loves steam engines, cars and planes. I wonder what the automotive world will be like in 2029 when he will be eligible to drive.
It is fair to assume there will be many autonomous cars on the road and the move is likely to be started by fleet buyers since it like giving their employees a chauffeur. There will, too, be the person who wants to be first on the block with the latest toy.
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