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<br><br> Did he mention the fact that the immediate beneficiaries of the Autonomous Vehicle <br>work the CARS program is doing will obviously be the military, who can use it to create<br>driverless vehicles with infra-red vision to go around killing everything with a pulse? Did<br>he mention that it will enable such vehicles to be disposable?<br><br> I bet he doesn't like to think about that. I don't know how those people sleep at<br>night. Stanford is getting to be famous for some really shameful stuff--Rehnquist, <br>O'Connor, Rice, and now robot suicide bombers.<br><br><br><br><br> <br><br><br><br><br><br><br><br><br><br><br><br><br>> Date: Wed, 15 Dec 2010 11:26:35 -0800<br>> From: tnharter@aceweb.com<br>> To: sosfbay-discuss@cagreens.org<br>> Subject: [GPSCC-chat] [Fwd: [TASC Notes:] The Future of the Automobile]<br>> <br>> <br>> <br>> -------- Original Message --------<br>> Subject: [TASC Notes:] The Future of the Automobile<br>> Date: Wed, 15 Dec 2010 04:09:30 EST<br>> From: TNHarter@aol.com<br>> To: undisclosed-recipients:;<br>> <br>> <br>> <br>> <br>> ><br>> > * Sven A. Beiker, PhD<br>> *<br>> > * The Future of the Automobile*<br>> ><br>> > Sven Beiker is Executive Director, Center for Automotive Research at<br>> > Stanford (CARS), the interdisciplinary automotive affiliates program<br>> > at Stanford University. The vision of CARS is to create a community<br>> > of faculty and students from a range of disciplines at Stanford with<br>> > leading industry researchers to radically re-envision the automobile<br>> > for unprecedented levels of safety, performance, sustainability, and<br>> > enjoyment. Their mission is to discover, build, and deploy the<br>> > critical ideas and innovations for the next generation of cars and<br>> > drivers.<br>> ><br>> > Before joining Stanford University, Sven worked at the BMW Group for<br>> > more than 13 years, and has worked in three major automotive and<br>> > technology locations: Germany, Silicon Valley, and Detroit. Since<br>> > Spring 2009 Sven has been teaching a Stanford class on "The Future<br>> > of the Automobile" to educate students in interdisciplinary<br>> > automotive thinking and to get them involved with the industry<br>> > early on.<br>> ><br>> > Sven will describe his work at CARS to bring research with automotive<br>> > interest from industry and academia together, and his vision for the<br>> > automobile's future.<br>> ><br>> Sven began by giving us a brief history of the automobile, starting with<br>> the first true self powered and steered car back in 1885 in Germany.<br>> He explained that in those early days there was lots of debate about<br>> engine configuration, steering and so forth. The second period of car<br>> history change was driven by different drive trains, chassis, and options.<br>> These matters have been mostly mature technologies since the 1970s.<br>> More recently safety issues, driver assistance, and crash safety have<br>> been factors in changing car design.<br>> <br>> Moving forward, the main challenges for car design that CARS have<br>> identified are safety (last year 1,200,000 people died in traffic<br>> Accidents worldwide and 34,000 in the United States), efficiency<br>> (last year the average commuter spent 36 hours per year stuck in<br>> traffic), pollution (last year 1.9 million tons of CO2 were emitted<br>> by the transportation sector), and cost (the average consumer<br>> spends $8,758 per year for transportation).<br>> <br>> Driver assistance is one area where Sven sees a lot of room for<br>> innovation. One reason is that human error plays a role in many<br>> accidents. Another is that computers can run the engine of a car<br>> much more efficiently than most drives. Another thing is that the<br>> legal challenges involved with a self driving car give the auto industry<br>> nightmares. The liability is unclear in case of an accident. Car companies<br>> are already releasing cars with things like adaptive cruise control that<br>> came from driver assistance research. Sven expects more of that in<br>> the future.<br>> <br>> Electric drive is more efficient than internal combustion engines,<br>> if you look at just one car and its power source. The problem is that<br>> there are many questions to be answered about where to get the<br>> power for millions of cars. That is an area where a lot of research<br>> is still to be done.<br>> <br>> Connectivity is another area where a lot of research is being done.<br>> Areas such as vehicle to vehicle (V2V) communication and vehicle<br>> to infrastructure (V2I) are being explored to find ways to add to the<br>> safety of driving. A big stumbling block is the question "who will pay<br>> for the infrastructure upgrades?" There are regulatory decisions<br>> about that coming in the 2013 time frame. In the mean time, cell<br>> phones are turning out to be good interfaces for many needs.<br>> <br>> Looking forward, Sven expects plug in hybrid cars to become more<br>> common by 2020 while it remains to be seen how battery electric<br>> vehicle will catch on.<br>> <br>> Tian Harter<br>> <br>> -- <br>> Tian<br>> http://tian.greens.org<br>> Latest change: Added a picture of 2010's quarters culled from junk mail.<br>> The manga video pin I got in '04 is on an American Samoa quarter now.<br>> _______________________________________________<br>> sosfbay-discuss mailing list<br>> sosfbay-discuss@cagreens.org<br>> http://lists.cagreens.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/sosfbay-discuss<br> </body>
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