Crystal-ball: how much longer will we be using cars recognizable to today's society?

Question

In my future world patterned as a dystopia of Western society, I want cars, more or less as we have them today (four wheels, metal crush cage with weathertight windows fully enclosing passengers, driver required at least for some of the trip, some sort of mechanical powerplant whether ICE, fully electric or hybrid). The number of cars will be minimal for a number of reasons, but I don't want one of those reasons to be that technology is moving human transportation beyond that point, especially for the super-rich; that makes my use of a car anachronistic.

About how much longer, in your estimation, will passenger cars exist in a form that a 2015 human would recognize as such? Obviously styles will change on a cycle of 5-7 years, and DARPA and other government agencies and NGOs have been directing manufacturer efforts on self-driving cars, but even many of these guys say a fully self-driving car is still decades away, primarily because a driver needs to be there for all the edge cases that confound the computer (bad weather, construction detours, unimproved roads, etc).

Even if the car is semi-autonomous, able to follow a route on freeways but requiring a human driver to negotiate driveways and parking, four wheels on the ground, a steering wheel in the driver's hands and a mechanical engine to power it all has been a staple of the machine since its invention, with a sturdy metal shell to protect driver and passengers since about the '30s; how much longer can we expect to have these elements in an individual passenger transport?

Answer 1

Car guy here. It's not an easy question to answer, but I'll put in my two cents. Look up a Ted talk about self driving cars and I think you'll see just how much a computer can handle better than a human. My friend is a pilot and he told me a pilot can essentially taxi onto the runway and get out. So I think the whole self driving thing is definitely in our future. However, look how many '57 Chevys and even model T's are still on the road today. I think what we'll see are many decades of trying to reconcile the old with the new. I speculate that it will start with super highways where the cars drive themselves followed by a slow expansion to other roads from heavily trafficked where it advantageous to the most, to smaller roads which may never become automated.

I believe tires are here to stay. Unless you can come up with really powerful, long lasting energy sources where the energy can essentially be wasted, it doesn't make much sense not to let a car rest on it's wheels. Plus cars that don't like the land speeders in Star Wars are just a different kind of car. Notice how the Jawas giant crawler vehicle had tracks and didn't hover. Same thing goes with the flying car of Bladerunner. Cars with wheels still existed.

I think the sturdy compartment will stay as well, due to the need for humans to be protected from the elements. You might look at some pictures of concept cars to get an idea of how the shape of that cabin might change.

I think for a futuristic story, the powerplant could be ignored as far as appearance goes. It could just live under the hood as always. If you need some way for it to function, then realistically, things don't change too fast. We have electric vehicles and hybrids that are common now, but did you know some of the first cars on the road were electric vehicles. As it turns out ladies didn't like the idea of breaking their wrists cranking old engines into life. They loved the convenience of a starter button. The electric starter and cheap gasoline which was a waste material, spelled its demise. . . until now.

So I guess it depends on how far in the future you want to go. I'd say you have many decades even a couple hundred years before the forms of power we have now completely disappear. I hope this helps.

Answer 2

As others have said, many aspects of current vehicle design are likely to survive for a long time. Wheels and hardened crash cages would appear to be permanent parts of our transportation future. But other features that you've mentioned, such as steering wheels, driver autonomy and self-contained power supplies may not survive the test of time. And in your case, that might be a good thing.

You mentioned that you are writing a dystopia, a story which highlights the darker aspects of the future which might be approaching. What better metaphor for that dark future, than the enslavement and subjugation of one of the greatest symbols of Western Freedom, the automobile. Have your 2015 human enter a future vehicle and find that it has no steering wheel. He has to ask the Traffic Control Center for permission to go to his desired location. Later, have your character attempt to re-establish his freedomeby wiring a joystick into his assigned vehicle. In response, have the Traffic Control Center stop sending power to his vehicle's engine.

The pursuit of freedom, stymied at every turn.

Answer 3

Given that it's been about 130 years since the first automobiles arrived, and the modern car would still be recognisable as a car to drivers from once they came into mass production, I think we're likely to still be seeing recognisable car concepts for at least another 100 years, although goodness knows what they'll look like, and what technologies we won't have predicted. Different styling, and featuresets and technologies that don't currently exist, but still cars.

Even the flying Spinners in Bladerunner were still cognitively cars, and they didn't even drive on the road.