Driverless Cars: The Future of Our Highways?

Driverless cars…Self-Driving Cars, Autonomous Vehicles…what you call them might be less important than the projected fact that they will make up 75%+ of cars on the road by 2040.  Cadillac announced in April 2012 that it’s been developing a self-driving car that could be ready by 2015.  Tesla announced last month that it will have a car that’s “90 percent autonomous…developed solely by Tesla with in-house technology” within three (3) years.  Nissan is planning to introduce commercially viable autonomous vehicles by 2020.  California has already passed legislation that requires the California Department of Motor Vehicles to draft regulations for autonomous vehicles by January 1st, 2015.  Google…a major player in the legislation…has it’s own fleet of self-driving cars that have travelled over 300,000 miles in testing…”without a single accident.”

Most recently, Mercedes-Benz recently tested an autonomous S-class on public roads and declaring its desire to be first to market with such a car… this decade.  And finally, Nissan has proclaimed plans to sell affordable self-driving cars by 2020,

Autonomous driving is said to be safer simply because machines work more quickly than we do. Our eyes capture fewer frames per second than a high-speed camera, our brain processes data and reacts to it more slowly than a CPU, and our hands and feet are trounced for pace by electronic actuators.

Besides the safety and mobility benefits, autonomous cars would make us tremendosly more efficient.  Why stress out over the daily grind of your commute…when working on your upcoming presentation that morning or simply reading a relaxing book?

But a major factor that will determine who’s most successful in bringing driverless technology to market is…trust. “Consumers trust technology companies like Google and Apple more than automakers when it comes to building self-driving cars, a new KPMG LLP study reveals.”

  • Consumers trust technology companies like Google and Apple more than traditional automakers when it comes to building self-driving cars, a new KPMG LLP study reveals.
  • “What came through loud and clear was that technology companies scored highest among consumers in the focus groups,” according to the advisory firm.
  • The survey shows technology companies logged a median score of eight on a scale of 1-10, with 10 being the highest level of trust.

Read More – Edmunds

Read More – AutoCar

 

Auto Body Gilroy News: 7-3-12

2013 Infiniti JX35 [w/video] – AutoBlog

Big Luxury That’s Long On Looks

2013 Infiniti JX35

Three-row crossovers are a bit like accounting departments in that every automaker has one, and there isn’t much else about them that’s exciting. But while most every automaker offers a crossover with seating for seven or eight, there surprisingly aren’t many options in the luxury space. The Audi Q7 doesn’t really count since it weighs an SUV-like 5,200 pounds. Lincoln offers the MKT, but few buyers have taken Ford’s luxury marque up on that offer. And then there is the Buick Enclave, which sells well but suffers from that “not quite a Cadillac” feeling. That’s it… every other three-row luxury vehicle falls squarely in the body-on-frame SUV category, until now.

Infiniti is looking to spice up the larger luxury space with its JX35, which is built on next-generation Nissan Pathfinder hardware, but with more expressive sheet metal and a spruced-up cabin compared to its mainstream counterpart. Since the field is wide open for Infiniti, the luxury brand appears ready to blaze its own trail with a reasonable $40,000 price of entry and an impressive suite of available features.

Continue reading 2013 Infiniti JX35 [w/video]

 

1956 Chevy 210 – Yesterday’s Child (HotRod)
1956 Chevy 210 - Yesterday’s Child - Hot Rod Magazine
A Case of Mistaken Identity

When it comes to photographing a car for a feature, it’s always good to know the car’s really a driver. We asked Ric Panneton about the best spots to photograph his ’56 Chevy 210 and were relieved to hear that he had no qualms about driving it to wherever we needed to go. We arrived at Ric’s house to find that the car was still tuned for drag racing as it had been when it ran at Famoso a few weeks prior. Ten minutes with the fiberglass front clip off had the distributor dialed back to a more cruising-friendly timing setting, and we were caravanning through Covina, California, the car’s loping idle drawing fellow motorists to turn their heads. One motorcyclist on a street bike nodded his approval through an open helmet visor, and pedestrians stopped in their tracks to stare. A legit, street-driven gasser is interesting enough, but the history of this car and how it managed to cross paths with its original owner are truly what makes it worthy of attention.

Photo Gallery:1956 Chevy 210 – Yesterday’s Child – Hot Rod Magazine