What does the future hold for automotive enthusiasm?

[Cobra]

I've been reading a lot of articles lately about what the future holds for the automotive industry.

It seems that in the short term at least, disregarding the mechanism by which propulsion will be generated, in the next few years we are set to see GPS controlled speed limits enforced in vehicles. At least in Europe anyway. However, Australia is destined to follow suit.

As cars become increasingly digital, enthusiasm for them will wane. As fast as a Tesla is, once most vehicles are fitted with electric motors, there will be very little to differentiate them from the competition, which will have an affect on the passion that's evoked.

Take ICE-powered vehicles today, for example, and compare them to 10-15 years ago. They're quicker, faster, more refined; and better in every sense dynamically. However, are they more exciting? I'd have to say, probably not. An R35 would destroy any Skyine previously, but the involvement you'd get from pushing an R34 GT-R with a traditional 6-speed cog swapper to its limits would seem, to me at least, much more rewarding.

As another example of where enthusiasm has fallen down the slippery slope is when I drove two cars back-to-back about a nine months ago, and realised that one was much, much better in every sense of the word... except when it came to the enjoyment factor.

I'm talking about a B7 Audi RS4 and a 2018 RS4 TTV6. The new RS4 was an astonishingly quick and beautifully appointed car. The B7 RS4 on the other hand, was a pure driving machine. That V8/manual combo had no hope of keeping up with a TTV6/DSG combo, but I couldn't care less! The B7 RS4 is an amazing machine and one which I'd love to own some day.

But, I digress. I guess where I'm coming from is that, I feel we're on the verge of some of the biggest technological changes in human history. So, where does that leave our passion for the automobile?

Well, that will depend on how quickly the departure is from vehicles being what we associate them to be today (from an enthusiasts perspective) to them being purely a functional, autonomous mode of personal transportation. The scope for enthusiasm will be about as wide as it is for any household appliance. Many will hold on for as long as possible, but the inevitable will eventually overwhelm what's currently the norm.

Some predict that companies like Uber, Google, Amazon and the like are set to change the landscape of personal transporation forever. From fully autonomous vehicles, right through to on-demand services which may even render the need for individual ownership of cars completely redundant. Whatever the future holds, though, I don't see a future where vehicles will evoke any kind of passion at the point when they become fully autonomous.

With that being said, I can see automotive enthusiasts coming together like never before. Some experts predict that motorsport and car ownership in general will become a specialist hobby, akin to horse ownership; participants in motorsport events will engage in activities as do those who currently are involved in equestrian.

The horse and cart was rendered redundant by the advent of the automobile, but the passion for horses lives on today. 150 years ago, learning to ride a horse was perhaps a lot more common place than it is today. Today, people learn to ride a horse because they want to, not because they have to.

In the future, will youngsters brought up in an autonomous vehicle generation, who have no mandate for acquiring a driver's licence, learn to drive antiquated sports cars, purely as a passion to participate in organised track events? Will we see autonomous vehicle carriers carting vehicles to track days, akin to a current day horse person towing their horse float?

I think the future of automotive enthusiasm looks bleak in terms of what we have to look forward to. However, I can see the passion and enthusiasm of the "good old days" of vehicles being a lot more than an appliance to move people from point A to point B, living on for longer than anyone reading this thread will be alive to witness.

[amiers]

zero.

[cheap]

There is so much money invested in road infrastructure that roads and cars simply can not be replaced, what you will see is roads and cars integrated as a wholistic solution.

This is where Tesla and others are completely off track as their vehicle only solution has many shortcomings.

It will take decades to implement a road and car integration, for a start the rules and standards will need to defined and agreed upon globally and locally. It will not be achieved in a couple of years like boy genius Musk wants you to think.

Where does that leave the enthusiast - enjoy driving while you still can because in the future you may as well be in a coma.

[Junkyard-Dog]

Autonomous cars COULD be fun. Imagine sitting in the passenger's seat and telling your 500+HP e car to drive like Senna on a curvaceous back road... that would be a thrill.

[383hq]

Originally Posted by Junkyard-Dog

Autonomous cars COULD be fun. Imagine sitting in the passenger's seat and telling your 500+HP e car to drive like Senna on a curvaceous back road... that would be a thrill.

In Porsche you can compare your lap times, braking points etc to the way Webber drives now for many circuits, yet its the old, analogue cars people want.

Second post is pretty close I reckon :-Don't worry about the future, Passion for automotive is declining now.

Motorsports are safe and processional, over-policed roads make automotive related events a cruise only yawn fest (with a few exceptions)

Now its about viewing, not driving :- museums and custom car shows (unregistered cars, built to view, not drive)

Further, no manufacturing base = no patriotism= less emotion (why are tax payers still paying for ANCAP crash tests....

The next generations will focus on perceived vehicle dynamics and modelling methods of the various computer games...

"we are set to see GPS controlled speed limits enforced in vehicles"

Vic alone has near half a billion dollars in revenue from speed cameras and patrol issued traffic infringements. Show me the incentive, and I will show you the outcome = No mandatory GPS controlled speed limits (until the revenue hole can be filled with other means)

It will be exactly like horse riding :- a very small minority will continue, Many will not, placing it in the too hard basket

[Express]

Originally Posted by amiers

zero.

Agreed.

Most people like household appliances that do the job for you which is were automotive technology for the masses is heading and those of us who are enthusiastic will eventually be diluted out as we drop off the tree.

Times are definitely a changing.






.

[Junkyard-Dog]

Not much point paying a premium for fuel when we are only allowed to drive our cars at 1/10th of their capability tbh

[GO FURTHER]

Cars? What are they?
Just a means of getting from A to B today for most.

Enthusiasm for cars started dying when technology took over.

Phones and social media, is where all the interest is today it seems.

[CyberWasp]

Maybe Automotive Enthusiasm will take on a different look in the future that is somewhat similar to the PC Enthusiast market now.
There will be many ways to change or mod an Electric Car with Motors, Batteries and other components.

[whynot]

I tend to agree, the future of driving an automobile for the pleasure of it seems bleak.

An article in the Wall Street Journal a few days ago had this to say

... If teenagers are any guide, Americans’ love affair with the automobile may no longer be something car makers can bank on.

The percentage of teens with a driver’s license has tumbled in the last few decades and more young people are delaying purchasing their first car—if buying one at all, say analysts, generational experts and car industry executives. About a quarter of 16-year-olds had a driver’s license in 2017, a sharp decline from nearly half in 1983, according to an analysis of licensing data ...

The rest of the article is behind a pay wall here ...

https://www.wsj.com/articles/driving...&page=1&pos=10

Funny thing is ... with all of the adaptive toys on a modern car, I enjoy going on long drives more today than in my youth. The (long) drive itself seems less of a choir when handing over some of the workload to the car.

Last week I too my mum down to surrender her driver's licence. She had her licence 64 years, without a traffic infringement or accident. But, it was very apparent how tough it was for her to give up that freedom.

Hopefully, when it comes time for me to hand in my licence, there will be fully autonomous vehicles to take me where I want to go.

[Cobra]

Originally Posted by whynot

I tend to agree, the future of driving an automobile for the pleasure of it seems bleak.

An article in the Wall Street Journal a few days ago had this to say



The rest of the article is behind a pay wall here ...

https://www.wsj.com/articles/driving...&page=1&pos=10

Funny thing is ... with all of the adaptive toys on a modern car, I enjoy going on long drives more today than in my youth. The (long) drive itself seems less of a choir when handing over some of the workload to the car.

Last week I too my mum down to surrender her driver's licence. She had her licence 64 years, without a traffic infringement or accident. But, it was very apparent how tough it was for her to give up that freedom.

Hopefully, when it comes time for me to hand in my licence, there will be fully autonomous vehicles to take me where I want to go.

Autonomous vehicles will be fantastic for old people. I'm 34, so hopefully I still have 50+ years of driving left in me. Or maybe an autonomous vehicle will have made my licence redundant a long time before I'm 85 years old.

[Cobra]

Originally Posted by CyberWasp

Maybe Automotive Enthusiasm will take on a different look in the future that is somewhat similar to the PC Enthusiast market now.
There will be many ways to change or mod an Electric Car with Motors, Batteries and other components.

I agree with that. But for mine, that's where the medium-term future is for vehicle enthusiasm and modifications. In the long-term though, when vehicles are fully autonomous, there will be no need/desire to modify. That's when cars start becoming like the horse. We'll buy 20 litre cans of fuel from outlets as horse people would buy feed.

[davship]

No matter what type of vehicle we will have in the future, some owners will want to modify them, and there will be many businesses catering for them.

[b0son]

Originally Posted by GO FURTHER

Phones and social media, is where all the interest is today it seems.

They're simply a tool by which people say 'look at me'

Enthusiasts priorities are simply changing. They're focussing less on performance, and more on looks.

[Romulus]

There will be a market to hack and fool the GPS and data logging. Big brother won’t decide if it’ll allow me to go to the shops at 2am to buy a carton of beer and a pack of cigarettes, neither will it need to know where I go.

As for autonomous vehicles, I’ll let a car drive for me at a time when aircraft can fly themselves. Given Boeing’s recent MACS issue leading to the death of 300 odd passengers in 2 crashes I’ll leave the self driving technology to those who are incompetent drivers, those who probably shouldn’t be on the road in the first place.

[Sprintey]

A ray of sunshine for this thread: Jaguar to release 294Kw inline six once again:

https://www.whichcar.com.au/car-news...w-straight-six

Now for me that might mean I can spec a competently dynamic F-Pace with full time AWD, and a petrol inline six powering it. Sounds almost like a Territory back in 2007...

Inline 6's were always premium, well balanced too. They really don't look out of place in a Range Rover.

Now if Mazda are right and ICE has some life left in it, and maybe also that the FAANGS companies are actually dubiously profitable and just an enormous bubble waiting to pop - maybe there will be life left in the fun and mechanical world.

[Franco Cozzo]

Car enthusiasm among Gen Y/Gen Z is pretty low, plus the war on 'hoons' (read car enthusiasts) that started a little over a decade ago has damaged us even more by making anyone with a modified car a target for police attention and have shade thrown at you by the average Joe.

You've really got to fly under the radar with modified cars or you'll get ****ed by the police by being an easy target.

The death of car enthusiasm among our young is our own fault because we've not really made too many attempts to seek out new blood and keep it going, it doesn't help having ridiculously low speed limits in this country that makes it an absolute chore to drive across either, about a week ago I drove over to Adelaide and back and it gets to a point where its just a waste of two days of annual leave and I only stopped once over and once back for fuel and that was it and it still took 7.5 hours, might as well as fly and not put up with caravans and stupidly low speed limits that make it boring and gain two days in the process that you lose driving.

Took the old mans Fiesta ST, took me about $75 in fuel each way, its about $180 to fly QANTAS Melbourne to Adelaide each way, but I save two days in annual leave that I'm not using in the car driving, it works out more cost effective to fly taking annual leave usage into account that you use just traveling behind the wheel - lose maybe 3 hours in transit not 15 and those 15 I don't eat or drink I just drive so I don't need to stop anywhere for toilets, just fuel, I got 600km into the trip before I stop to grab fuel just in case, I reckon I could have gone point to point without stopping and saved 15 minutes or so on a fuel stop but it would have been risky.

A lot of those roads are in decent condition across that 700km trip, I don't see why we can't have limits of 130km/h plus, then I wouldn't be so interested in looking at my phone and paying more attention to the music than actually driving at snails pace for hours on end.

[Citroënbender]

It could be made to be lots of fun; imagine a personal drone flying low 1km ahead of you like a forward scout, it sees the cam car, alerts and you immediately back off...

[Sprintey]

Franco, having done plane packed like sardine for last 10 years or so, many distances I'd actually like to drive these days. Got nailed so bad by the flu from flight on hols over West last year, 1.5wks of lying in bed inventing new colours of phlegm. In retrospect a drive would have been much nicer with more holiday time!

And - if hooning is banned how come every dual cab ute ad on TV has them thrashing the pss out of the cars and ripping up tracks and the great outdoors? Doesn't get much more bogan or hoon than that. Take that, nature!

[GazzF6]

Interesting question!

Not sure if the future will hold much fun for us car enthusiasts to be honest..
Electric power won’t provide the sound, and smell like we have today, and if i’m not going to be driving where’s the fun in that?

I knew things were getting out of whack when I first saw the neighbor across the road mowing his lawn with an extension cord trailing behind...

Never mind plenty of Fords in heaven!

[Burnout]

I'm in my 60's heading down the hill, so to speak. So it doesn't bother me either way.
From my perspective I have my two cars for the use of, when they take my license is when I will give them up. My ute is for towing & the sedan is for pottering around. For my driving future I'll never buy or use an electric kettle... sorry... car.
My old man was born in 1903, he saw the horse go, I suppose that was handy otherwise we'd be up to our armpits in horse dung.
Times change and they will, however I think I'll be able to stick with the cars I have and they will see me out.

[Ben73]

In the old days everyone had horses and only the rich had cars.
Now everyone has a car and only the rich have horses.
In the future only well to do enthusiasts will have cars and will only be able to use them at certain locations.
That would be a couple of decades off at least, but I can see it happening.

I get sick of driving sometimes like everyone, but this afternoon it was 22°c, low to moderate traffic, music playing through Bluetooth on a decent sound system, windows were down and I was enjoying my drive even though I had cruise control set due to double demerits.
There's just something about it I love, even when driving sedately in a pretty average car.

[CoupeKing]

Don't blame me. I still stand in the queue at a supermarket.

[Bossxr8]

Autonomous vehicles can never totally replace conventional vehicles imo. Not outside the city anyway. Off roading/camping is becoming so popular these days and is only increasing, I can't see people loading up their AV and heading bush. Are they going to recharge it by plugging into a tree? Not to mention the distances people travel off the beaten track in remote areas. No charging stations out there.

They will have their place but they will supplement conventional vehicles, not completely replace them.

[Junkyard-Dog]

Solar charging could be an option.

[b0son]

Originally Posted by Sprintey

A ray of sunshine for this thread: Jaguar to release 294Kw inline six once again

This surprises me... I have an XE S (3.0 SC V6), and that engine is like butter. I wonder if some of this is to appease enthusiasts as some sort of last hurrah for ICE's, as Jag are going all-in with EVs over the next decade.

[Blue Roo]

What does the future hold for the automotive enthusiasm or enthusiast ?
Not much better than Vanilla Ice cream. Boring and tasteless. Just like Electric Cars.

[Sprintey]

Hacker Finds He Can Remotely Kill Car Engines After Breaking Into GPS Tracking Apps:

https://motherboard.vice.com/en_us/a...-tracking-apps

"By reverse engineering ProTrack and iTrack’s Android apps, L&M said he realized that all customers are given a default password of 123456 when they sign up."

Solid encryption.

"L&M also claimed to be able to do much more than just monitor customers’ vehicles.

“I can absolutely make a big traffic problem all over the world,” L&M said. “I have fully [sic] control hundred of thousands of vehicles, and by one touch, I can stop these vehicles engines.”"

This guy is enthusiastic for the chaos he can cause with cars. A reminder that carburettors cannot be hacked.

[Vesper Martini]

Originally Posted by Junkyard-Dog

Autonomous cars COULD be fun. Imagine sitting in the passenger's seat and telling your 500+HP e car to drive like Senna on a curvaceous back road... that would be a thrill.

A nice notion, but I actually think there is Zero change of a high powered autonomous vehicle.
safety regs and legal liabilities would rule it out. pretty sure they would all be speed limited too.

Thinking about it, its possible road going performance cars could quickly become a thing of the past if Automakers became liable for any speed related incident.
Automated cars could trigger it all.

[Vesper Martini]

*Zero chance