The foot on the pedal and the freedom of the open road could be something our kids will never experience.
Do you remember the first time you took your parents car out for a spin?
With your freshly minted license in your pocket, it was just you, the car and the road (and maybe a carful of mates) – all with an exhilarating hit of freedom.
But is this same kind of freedom going to be available to our kids?
Two recent developments in car technology are pointing to a future where kids behind the wheel will either be severely monitored, or in the case of driverless cars, will be a thing of the past.
In a new breakthrough available right now, U.S. manufacturer Chevrolet is installing ‘teen driver’ software in its Chevrolet Malibu, which will be available in Australia as the revamped Holden Malibu due for release in 2016.
The software will create a ‘report card’ for parents each time your teen takes your car out for a spin. The seven point report will detail distance driven, the maximum speed clocked (!!), overspeed warnings, forward collision alerts, and will tell parents how many times the car’s automated stability control and collision avoidance breaking systems were activated.
Anyone else think that if these were around when we were learning to drive, that they’d be getting a D minus?
In even freakier car related news, Elon Musk, the co-founder and CEO of innovative car manufacturer, Tesla, has declared that he believes that within twenty years, human controlled cars will be outlawed in favour of ones that are controlled by robots.
While this sounds like a complete techno freakout, Musk describes it in a way that seems to actually make sense. At the recent NVidia annual developers conference he said, "It would be like an elevator. They used to have elevator operators, and then we developed some simple circuitry to have elevators just automatically come to the floor that you're at ... the car is going to be just like that."
What do you think about a future where our kids won’t learn how to drive?
Does it make you feel that they’ll be that little bit safer out in the world? Or does it make you sad for their loss of freedom?
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