Aron9000

Cars like Buick, Cadillac, Oldsmobile, Lincoln, Chrsyler, ie expensive cars had V8's standard in the late 50's. Your average low line Chevy Bel-Air, Plymouth Fury, Ford, etc had a straight six under the hood. Not everybody had the $$$$ for a big, flashy V8 car back then. But I think the main thing is there were a lot more miser types around back then, who lived through the depression, and bought as cheap of a car as they possibly could.

bd5400

I think one factor that is going to potentially hurt automated cars is the fact that they may be programmed to minimize harm to everyone, rather than solely to their passengers. An automated car may choose to put you in greater danger of injury or death if there is an inevitable collision and it calculates that the least amount of overall danger to life and limb involves driving you directly into a wall.

Lets say someone is driving on a two lane road and an oncoming vehicle blows a tire and crosses the center line. A human driver may steer onto the shoulder or sidewalk to avoid the oncoming car, without realizing (or without caring) that there are three people on the side of the road who will get hit. An automated car, sensing the people on the side of the road, may decide to take the impact of the oncoming car instead. In scenario one, you're fine but you've seriously injured or killed three people (assuming you hit all three). In scenario two, you and the other driver are seriously injured or dead, and that fate was chosen by a machine.

I read an article stating that people generally want cars to minimize overall risk but they want the car they're riding in to act in their own best interest. I feel like a lot of people are going to have a hard time accepting the idea that their car may choose another life over theirs.