After a century and a quarter of gestation, the car has finally cracked it. Yes, there are things to be a bit gloomy about if you’re utterly committed to driving a really noisy, smelly vehicle as fast as you darned well like. But in the normal world, the car has finally won out.
Every obstacle and every complaint made about it is set to be removed or overcome, and the machine that changed the world is about to morph into something the world finally accepts.
I don’t think you’d find many people who deny that cars have brought untold freedoms but, as they’ve said at considerable length over the years, cars are dirty, noisy, dangerous and elitist. In their ways, all true, but because cars have let us go where we wanted, when we wanted, we’ve put up with it. Every single one of us has used the car.
And soon we’ll be able to do it with less guilt: in future, your cars will make no sound and emit no gases or particles and their energy will (should/can) be produced renewably. Sensors and limiters will avoid accidents and prevent antisocial use. And although cars have been cheaper than public transport for years in most places, they’ll get cheaper still, and as they become more readily shared, reducing their footprint in towns, they’ll become even more democratic and less invasive. 
And the last, less-spoken obstacle? That they take your time and that, to date, you haven’t been able to drive and do something else simultaneously? Look, cars might never drive themselves absolutely everywhere in every condition, but they’ll be closer than any other form of transport. After all, what is a geofenced highway, on which cars seamlessly tail each other autonomously at speeds, if not a more practical, more efficient and more flexible mass transit system, with the advantage that the vehicle happens to go from exactly where you are, to where you want to go, at the precise moment you want to?
Since the invention of the car, there has never been a more disruptive time in the business than right now. But as we start to begin to see some consensus across the industry, coupled with the direction legislation is clearly taking, the future is starting to become clear, and the outcome is one where cars are clean, safe, efficient, quiet, fast and attainable. If you have hitherto had a problem with the car, over the next two decades it’ll solve it.
The car came, it saw, it conquered, and now it is looking to benignly settle in its empire, a position from where I can’t see it being moved. What alternative is better? Scooters and bikes and horses are slower, trains and buses only go on set routes and, while I’m not against the principle of affordable, personal, droney three-dimensional travel, the potential for uncontrolled descent through the z-axis is, like the incessant buzzing noise, a prospect that I suspect will keep it from catching on. Especially when a car of the near future, driving on a road network optimised for it, will frankly do pretty much all you’ll ever need.
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Utopia - for who? The view from Australia.
Matt, I think you are kidding yourself. The motor car is evolving to become safer, quieter and more environmentally sound in the not too distant future. For the average Joe (or Joan), who neither cares about or enjoys the process of driving, it will be a good thing. And, a few more years on, autonomous driving will make car ownership almost irrelevant. The car hasn't won, it's been reined in, made to obey the rules and heaven help the driver who tries to break them.
Right now, I keep reading about the huge power outputs promised by the makers of electric performance cars and I wonder who on earth will want or need them in our GPS speed- controlled future. Are we really going to drag race up to 100km/h? Of course not.
Until I hear different, this means car enthusiasts will have to look elsewhere for fun. I can't see a future for any performance car unless it's for track day use only. Classic cars? I'm sure they'll have to be retrofitted with GPS speed control too.
The car hasn't triumphed, it's been neutered for the greater good. Alas, it also spells the end of driving for fun, the end of performance cars, and Autocar will probably become known as Autonomous Car. By the sound of it, you might be keen to become the Editor.
Utopia will be a long time coming!
Incompetent Governments will ensure the lack of investement in infrastructure severely curtails the progress towards this utopian future.
Autocar...
..may have been a long way ahead of time itself when it named. Soon no one will care about cars, essentially the 100 year + golden period is finally over. My prediction is that private motoring will quickly go into decline once the "big brother express" is up and running.
By big brother express you
By big brother express you mean virtually free, fast travel for all.
If you own a phone you are already being tracked by big business if the state wants that data they can get it but they need due cause.
However that data is then used to actively improve services and make private and public decision making better, on average it is a societal good.
Big brother doesn't give a sh#t where you are going or why unless you are causing a negative externality, with electric autonamous cars your negative externalities are pretty small.
Rather than complaining about changes to personal commuity the driving community really needs to get together to protect driving/riding for pleasure. An example of this is the London ULEZ which operates 24/7 but also includes motorbikes which cause neglible polution in London as a result owning an old motorcycle in london is effectively being banned.
I hear you and..
I've tried that a[[oach but I kept being told that customers don't know wheels drives or how many cylinders it and that noboby cares about that sort of thing any longer all they really care about is the interior and the image of the "supply company" so I've pretty much given up being an enthusiast and try to be a realist.