Self-Driving Tech Won’t Kill Driver’s Cars, Says Jaguar Strategy Chief
Young drivers and those not old enough to have taken the wheel yet don’t need to worry about losing great drives cars, according to the man leading Jaguar’s plans for future products.
Head of product strategy, Hanno Kirner, has been quoted by Autocar as saying that whatever happens with heavily driver-assisted cars or eventual self-driving tech, if such a thing is even possible, Jaguar will carry on making exciting driver’s cars.
That’s as long as there’s a demand, of course, but at the moment demand for fun cars is outstripping Jaguar’s production capacity to build them, Kirner added. Even the smartphone-obsessed generation will eventually want to drive. He said:
“Whether it is SVO recreating classics to modern standards or creating track-day specials, I think it will grow as autonomous driving becomes a regular part of lives.
“I don’t for one second think we’ll see a generation appear with no interest in cars. Driving enthusiasts will still exist and we’ll want to engineer cars for them.
“Today, we have more demand than we can satisfy for such cars and I don’t expect that to change. Yes, there is a generation that is more interested in their phones than anything else today, but they will grow older and want to drive one day.”
Autocar also repeats the suggestion from two months ago that Jaguar is looking to slim down its current range of performance badges. Apparently, having S, R and SVR grades of spiciness is confusing buyers, so the R grade found on Alex’s wonderful F-Type long-termer is on the way out.
Source: Autocar
Comments
Killing off the R badge won’t kill anyone, says ExoPilotZ.
Amongst all cats lies a jaguar.
Rimac Concept Two - because who doesn’t want a car that is good for environment and autonomous, yet also crazy fast, fun to drive and has a drift mode.
It even has an autonomous dirft and track mode that can actually teach you to drive your car fast and sideways.
This is future, and admit it, we would love it
No… You would love it. Don’t make this collective, we can speak for ourselves
I get what this is trying to say, but for some people (like myself) super cars are either unattainable or unappealing. I would much rather prefer to trial and error with a slower car which I can control fully than just be taken to the same level than a machine. While this comment makes sense to many people, it can’t be used as a blanket comment for everyone
Meanwhile Rimac uses autonomous technology to learn the driver to drift/go fast on the track. Autonomy and driving can work together you know.
Good point. It won’t be too long until virtual track-day coaches are a thing. Probably won’t appear on all cars though as that hardware adds weight.
And still the driver crashes…the A.I tried to help hammond but did the total oposite…because it didn’t predict that the average human reaction is a countersteer on a drift
That’s true but all I want is a manual R8 V10 Spyder and no one else on the road. As long as I can at least drive the car, even through traffic, I’m happy. Take that away and there will be a mob with burning effigies and pitchforks storming Washington D.C.
I agree with that stance. If there is a car that enough people want, someone will make it. There are plenty of “drivers’ cars” on the roads right now - over 1 million MX-5s alone. We have no idea what a “drivers’ car” will look like or be powered by in 50 years time but they won’t die out as long as people want them.
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That maybe true for the incoming generation but what about the next one? Also consumer demand is only one part of the equation, you have things like legislature, insurance premiums and concerned parents to deal with.
Once self driving cars actually become a reality and are proven safer than humans insurance companies will start jacking up the pricing for anything without auto drive or have a clause denying coverage if accident happens when human driving and human is at fault.
Then you will have all the boneheaded politicians that are responsible for stupidly low speed limits in the name of “safety” who will start designating auto only driving zones, say highways at first. (And before you say that won’t happen how many cities are starting to ban cars outright from certain areas or have congestion charges?)
And the final nail in the coffin is the concerned parent, who is going to buy/allow little Johny to drive a car in which he might crash when they can be in a nice safe self driving pod that will never stray over the speed limit/get distracted.
There is also the whole push for car sharing in the first place, if Uber and Lyft could run self-driving cars for per-mile cost less than owning a car they can put a massive dent in car ownership (as long as they manage availability properly).
Car people are born out of the thrill of controlling a machine, something we learn when we first pass our driving test but if there is no driving test…
P.S. Also full immersion technologies something like “Ready Player One” might be all of the thrill none of the firey death + tickets.
Better start searching new hobbies then. Mh… :(
The F-Type looks best in blue
‘Won’t” he says, that’s exactly what Elon Musk said but look what happened
THANK GOD