Electric Vechicles Are Here - The world is rapidly going to S#@!

One thing about self-driving cars that very few people even think about is the ETHICS of a self driving vehicle. Sounds silly.

Suppose your car is driving you at a relatively high rate of speed. Two individuals step off the curb into the path of your car. Your car calculates that it will be unable to stop and avoid striking the pedestrians by braking alone. Does your car swerve to avoid the pedestrians, striking a telephone pole and killing you, the driver? Or does it protect you, the driver, by remaining on the road, resulting in the death of two pedestrians? Or one pedestrian? Or four pedestrians? What is the limit of the number of people your car will run over before it decides to let you die instead?

Obviously, the car is not able to make this decision through intelligence. It will "decide" through artificial intelligence. All artificial intelligence is, is the result of algorithms and computer code placed in its "brain" by a programmer. What ethics standards are the programmers following?

There will be a lot of situations such as this that won't be known by the consumer until real world results are seen on the news.
 

Larry L.

Lifetime Supporter
How is Cali' electrical grid going to hold up to that when they cannot handle a hot day now....

I've brought up the same point numerous times during 'conversations' with 'greenies'...as well as the various doomsday fire hazard scenarios posed by the current E.V. batteries, the cost of battery 'recycling', the scarcity of the raw materials needed to make the batteries in the 1st place, aaaaand the not-too-far-off-down-the-road $10,000 monthly household electric power bills ('exaggeration?) that all the additional electricity demand will create...not to mention all the new taxes and FEES EVs will be stuck with once their numbers have ballooned high enough. Similar-minded tax & fee games will very likely be used to force ICE-powered cars OFF the road.
Further down the road, once things have gotten to the point where the gubmunt has installed sensors in the roadways to 'driver your car for you' (for 'safety' purposes, of course), I can envision our EVs not being able to leave our garages until, say, our TAXES (or whatever) have been paid - if any are owed.
And then, of course, there's the possibility of some cyber hacker throwing the whole system's "on/off" switch to the OFF position until the country pays a billion (trillion?)-or-two in ransom. (Ya, I know, I know...I'm just a conspiracy theorist.)
There's much more that could be mentioned, but you get the idea.
'Going to my room now.
 
So how green am I?
The most modern cars we have are two '83 Ford Fiesta's. Our other daily's are two '87 Honda VT1100's. All other mobility we have is older.

Factories didn't have to build us new stuff for decades. I do not take part of the just throw away if you get bored of it civilisation we are ended inn. I just keep maintening my old stuff. If it gets crusty just weld a new plate in it. If the engine is worn, just rebuild..
I do own a new washing machine, cause the old one died and parts where an issue. My tv is aged but does it job.
I still do the dishes by hand every evening.

Do I make the polution or do the factories made the polition making stuff I don't need but making me buy.

I am probably just a dynosaur...
 

Randy V

Moderator-Admin
Staff member
Admin
Lifetime Supporter
One thing about self-driving cars that very few people even think about is the ETHICS of a self driving vehicle. Sounds silly.

Suppose your car is driving you at a relatively high rate of speed. Two individuals step off the curb into the path of your car. Your car calculates that it will be unable to stop and avoid striking the pedestrians by braking alone. Does your car swerve to avoid the pedestrians, striking a telephone pole and killing you, the driver? Or does it protect you, the driver, by remaining on the road, resulting in the death of two pedestrians? Or one pedestrian? Or four pedestrians? What is the limit of the number of people your car will run over before it decides to let you die instead?

Obviously, the car is not able to make this decision through intelligence. It will "decide" through artificial intelligence. All artificial intelligence is, is the result of algorithms and computer code placed in its "brain" by a programmer. What ethics standards are the programmers following?

There will be a lot of situations such as this that won't be known by the consumer until real world results are seen on the news.

Just as in REAL LIFE the best thing you can do behind the wheel of a vehicle is to always be aware of your surroundings and to maintain control of the vehicle.
If a deer runs right out in your path on the highway - what do you do?
1) swerve to possibly miss the deer?
2) brake very hard in the direction the car has been going in order to minimize impact and injury?
The correct answer will always be #2.
Of course, if you’d been fully aware of your surroundings, you would have suspected that there may be deer moving about and prepare yourself for that potential.

The very same would hold true in the pedestrian or pole scenario.
If you’re in the vicinity of pedestrian traffic, it is your job to be aware of potential dangers and to be prepared.
I suggest that the human response to the scenario you outlined would be to brake and maybe swerve, but in the process of doing that, you would likely lose control of the vehicle and still injure the pedestrians as well as yourself - or - take out the kid on the bicycle that was in your blind spot when you swerved.
There’s a million scenarios or more. Depending on all the outside forces on our lives, we could be on our A-Game fully prepared for whatever hand is dealt, or we can be tired & distracted.
The computer will be on its A-Game all the time.

That said - I am not a fan of autonomous cars and trucks ((yet))... They are in their infancy, but picking up speed quickly. There will be little we can do to stop it or even impede the process via our votes and sharing our opinions..
 

Randy V

Moderator-Admin
Staff member
Admin
Lifetime Supporter
I've brought up the same point numerous times during 'conversations' with 'greenies'...as well as the various doomsday fire hazard scenarios posed by the current E.V. batteries, the cost of battery 'recycling', the scarcity of the raw materials needed to make the batteries in the 1st place, aaaaand the not-too-far-off-down-the-road $10,000 monthly household electric power bills ('exaggeration?) that all the additional electricity demand will create...not to mention all the new taxes and FEES EVs will be stuck with once their numbers have ballooned high enough. Similar-minded tax & fee games will very likely be used to force ICE-powered cars OFF the road.
Further down the road, once things have gotten to the point where the gubmunt has installed sensors in the roadways to 'driver your car for you' (for 'safety' purposes, of course), I can envision our EVs not being able to leave our garages until, say, our TAXES (or whatever) have been paid - if any are owed.
And then, of course, there's the possibility of some cyber hacker throwing the whole system's "on/off" switch to the OFF position until the country pays a billion (trillion?)-or-two in ransom. (Ya, I know, I know...I'm just a conspiracy theorist.)
There's much more that could be mentioned, but you get the idea.
'Going to my room now.

Frankly, I’m not overly concerned with the mining of lithium and other materials used in making batteries. Why? Because I am not going to make a hypocrite of myself by saying we shouldn’t mine these materials to make electric car batteries, but dammit - My cell phone needs those batteries as does my cordless vacuum cleaner, weed-wacker, hedge trimmer, cordless drill, etc etc....
Technology exists for almost a full recovery of the materials from these batteries, we just need to be smart and develop an appropriate means of getting and processing the old batteries - perhaps taxing the new batteries in order to help cover the process of reclaimation? Furthermore there are other means of storing electrical energy that are not batteries and they’re quickly coming of age and ability.

But what about the poor miners that are dying horrible deaths because of the lack of protection etc? Is that on us? We could just stop buying the materials from these mines. It won’t be long and those same people and their children will suffer terribly as they die from starvation...
The right answer - I think - is to insist that these workers are protected as best as possible with appropriate gear and add to that a board of International oversight to ensure these people are protected.
BUT
This will cost and cost dearly. Your cell phone just doubled again in price as did the batteries for your cordless tools.
Will you change your ways?
Will you sleep better?
 
All the software 'glitches'. Try turning it off and back on again. The sync 2 screen in my Ford that has twice gone blank for no reason. The radio channel button on my steering wheel that sometimes changes channel instantly & sometimes takes 20 seconds to do the same thing. All the patches & updates that are suddenly needed when things (that are 'perfect' and in production) actually don't work as intended. Boeing 737 Max......

They tell us that this stuff should be driving all the cars & trucks. Really.
 

Ron Earp

Admin
Really cool purpose-built EV that launched at Goodwood.


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Since this thread seemingly is about disliking EV's for several tangential reasons that are not related to electric propoulsion or GT40s might be time for this thread to head over to the Paddock.
 

Larry L.

Lifetime Supporter
The computer will be on its A-Game all the time.

Until it isn't, Randy.
Just the number of times our own PCs have 'frozen'/'crashed' and refused to budge illustrates that point.
Hackers have made fortunes screwing up computers' "A-Games." They long ago proved they can hack a car's computer system.
'Just sayin'...
 

Randy V

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Thanks for moving the thread Ron - I was about to do the same.

Until it isn't, Randy.
Just the number of times our own PCs have 'frozen'/'crashed' and refused to budge illustrates that point.
Hackers have made fortunes screwing up computers' "A-Games." They long ago proved they can hack a car's computer system.
'Just sayin'...

Which goes right back to my closing statement above
That said - I am not a fan of autonomous cars and trucks ((yet))... They are in their infancy, but picking up speed quickly. There will be little we can do to stop it or even impede the process via our votes and sharing our opinions..
It’s coming - like it or not. Computer systems can be hardened at a cost and they will pass that cost along to us, the consumers..
Oh - and don’t believe the movie hype that so many others believe —
* All computers have a back door (I’ve literally written millions of lines of code and never once coded an alternate point of entry).
* Any exposed port can give a hacker immediate entrance to the system. Pure movie fiction. Ports are used for input *only* when there is code on the inside that is looking for that port and activity on it. And even then, it would be a very finite set of codes or instructions that would be valid. I cannot imagine any reason to make a port hot for any and all instructions.
 

Larry L.

Lifetime Supporter
It’s coming - like it or not. Computer systems can be hardened at a cost and they will pass that cost along to us, the consumers..

...and hackers will still figure out ways to get around the upgrades no matter how much money is spent creating them...and operational glitches will still occur regardless as well. Both have always been the case.

Meanwhile, our points/plugs/condenser-powered 'classic' cars will be unaffected...aside from being hit by an EMP (or whatever they're called)...or a gov't-mandated, total absence of gasoline! :oops:

(Full disclosure? Regardless of all my gripes and misgivings about E.V.s; were it not for the fact that Porsche couldn't leave its "Mission e" concept car alone and put it into production 'as is' from a visual design standpoint, there'd be one sitting on the Mrs side of the garage right now! Buuuut, looks-wise, they instead chose to turn their "Taycan" production car into just another 4-door sedan in a sea of them.)

This ole man is heading for bed...
 
I love combustion engines, but their time is gone...just like phone exchange operators and rooms full of typists and the disappearing coal miner. Whatever anyone thinks politically, I don't care to entertain conspiracies, the fact of the matter is that time is short (scientifically this is the objective truth) and we need to change. Our kids will enjoy the smashing of high voltage relays and teeth-rattling hum of electromagnetic fields pushing instant screaming power to transmissions the same way we enjoyed a top fuel car thundering down the quarter mile. I welcome the change.
 

Ron Earp

Admin
Yep. As I wrote, we have two EVs and they are just fantastic vehicles. Doesn't mean I can't enjoy an ICE but the time of the ICE dominance is coming to a close. Just as we regulated steam engines to niche uses and nostalgia in favor of the ICE, the same will come to pass with ICEs in favor of electric motors.

Those that haven't tried a modern EV, that is one made in 2021, you owe it to yourself to at least test drive one. I suspect you'll come away impressed.
 
And to think,I have a genuine Dodge Monaco bluesmobile thats going to run out of gas one day for good. They only thing that is constant is change.
 

Neil

Supporter
I owned a Prius and I have to say that I was impressed. Toyota did a very good job of integrating the gas & electric drive systems- the switchover from one to the other was imperceptible and the road performance was not bad.

All in all I found the Prius OK, but not exciting. Maybe if I had not started off driving cars such as a Pontiac GTO, supercharged Studebaker, or a Ferrari V12 I may have felt different. Too late.... I was spoiled!
 

Randy V

Moderator-Admin
Staff member
Admin
Lifetime Supporter
I owned a Prius and I have to say that I was impressed. Toyota did a very good job of integrating the gas & electric drive systems- the switchover from one to the other was imperceptible and the road performance was not bad.

All in all I found the Prius OK, but not exciting. Maybe if I had not started off driving cars such as a Pontiac GTO, supercharged Studebaker, or a Ferrari V12 I may have felt different. Too late.... I was spoiled!
I once owned a Camry Hybrid and was equally impressed with the system. It was much more powerful than the Prius.
When I was still instructing at the Performance Driving School at Brainerd International Raceway in Minnesota, We periodically used our street vehicles to take students on touring runs where we taught the racing lines dry & wet.
I had 4 passengers with me and a couple of the guys were scoffing a bit about being in a hybrid at a racing school.
O-kaaaay...... Coming off of the last turn before the almost mile long straight, I hammered it. About half way down the track we had achieved the computer limited “terminal velocity” of 130 mph. No more scoffing of the “electrogass” car at that point - but it sure created a buzz about the paddock....
 

Brian Kissel

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Admin
Lifetime Supporter
I have a deposit on a new Corvette Z06. Supposed to be the last naturally aspirated Vette. I also have a deposit on the rumored upcoming AWD 1000hp Zora. Rumored to be twin turbos with electric up front . Put the deposit down on the Zora in 2019. Recently put the deposit on the Z06, because they keep pushing the Zora out. Possibly until 2026! Hopefully I’ll live long enough to get it. The only electric car I really want.

Regards Brian
 

Ron Earp

Admin
As far as trying out a BEV, the Prius and other hybrids don't provide an accurate representation of what a BEV can do. Not at all. You need to give a modern pure electric vehicle a try.

For performance enthusiasts go try a Tesla Model 3 Performance, or Tesla Plaid. These are 11s and 9s cars stock, and, have proper suspensions to drive as well as the best the Germans can put together. For a more mainstream vehicle try the Ford Mach E in standard or performance versions. And if affordibility / practicality are the primary movitators give the 2022 Chevy Bolt a try, it's a 200hp hatch that is a pretty fun drive.
 
I once owned a Camry Hybrid and was equally impressed with the system. It was much more powerful than the Prius.
When I was still instructing at the Performance Driving School at Brainerd International Raceway in Minnesota, We periodically used our street vehicles to take students on touring runs where we taught the racing lines dry & wet.
I had 4 passengers with me and a couple of the guys were scoffing a bit about being in a hybrid at a racing school.
O-kaaaay...... Coming off of the last turn before the almost mile long straight, I hammered it. About half way down the track we had achieved the computer limited “terminal velocity” of 130 mph. No more scoffing of the “electrogass” car at that point - but it sure created a buzz about the paddock....
Man who teaches F1 drivers how to drive uses a Vauxhall Astra :)

 
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