The Weekly Screed (#719)

Look, Ma! No hands!
by David Benjamin

MADISON, Wis. — They’re bandying phrases now like “autonomous car” and “hands-free motoring.” What this means is that if you’re one of those dreamers who’ve always yearned to eat a big plateful of buttermilk pancakes, or crochet a granny-square afghan while tucked into the driver’s seat of your minivan, well, your time has come!

Every automaker from Detroit to Aichi-ken has teams of engineers strapped to the grindstone perfecting the technology of the car that just up and drives itself. They’re burning midnight oil on this project because — they say — people want this stuff. You and me! We’re screaming, begging and boycotting dealerships because we each want our own personal Frankencar. All God’s chil’en want to let go the wheel, lift our feet off the footfeet, lean back in our Magic Fingers bucket seats and watch HD infotainment on the HUD ‘til our eyes bleed.

Actually, I’m a little surprised to learn that this particular innovation is my automotive heart’s desire. I always thought it would be more practical to finally figure out how to put a toilet in the rumble seat.

I mean, I’ve been talking cars with guys since I could tell a Ford from a Studebaker, discussing everything from horses under the hood to manual chokes. In my whole life, I’ve never met a devout car guy who dreams of buying a brand-new candy-colored tangerine-flake streamlined four-speed, dual-quad, posi-traction 409 ragtop, and sliding in behind the wheel to discover — rapturously —  that the wheel’s been replaced by a cup-holder.

As carmakers stampede into the heady new world of people-optional motoring, they say they’re doing it for safety’s sake. Those same altruists who fought tooth-and-nail against padded dashboards, seat belts, airbags, dual braking systems, collapsible steering columns, driver’s ed, speed limits and Ralph Nader are now all gung-ho about… safety?
Okay, sure. So, let’s talk safety.

Your basic hands-free car requires the meshing together in flawless unison of several hundred ECUs (electronic control units), which operate — without any pesky human meddling, knowledge or access — all the meaningful hardware and software in the vehicle of tomorrow.

One indication of the state-of-the-art in high-tech hardware was a General Motors ignition system that tended to jiggle loose, sending a message to the ECU to shut down everything else in the car, occasionally resulting in human body parts spread around on the Interstate. Recalls on that little oops have soared into millions while GM girds its loins for death and injury payouts in the billions.

One analyst referred to the car of the future as a “computer on wheels.” This description is largely true today, but the rub is the nature of the computer itself. Most computers are delicate machines, intolerant of bumps, thumps, fluids and temperature. They’re obsolete in five years and — meanwhile —  they can be hacked and operated remotely by teenage sociopaths 2,000 miles away. These limitations explain why technicians are struggling with the demand for “automotive grade” components. Cars go outdoors. They scrape things, bump into other things and hit potholes. Under the hood, temperatures can range from boiling hot to 40 below zero. Cars stay on the road for 20 years or more.

If a car were truly a “computer on wheels,” it would “crash” — in mid-task — and have to be re-booted (at 70 mph?) at least three times a week. It would cease to operate entirely and forever the first time someone spilled coffee on the dash.

If you think carmakers have figured out how to make automotive electronics that last as long as, say, the compression cap in a ’69 Beetle, you’re definitely a live one. How about a nice drive-it-itself Tesla ($70,000 — cheap!)?

The real fun here is software. A few years ago, an occasional rogue Toyota would suddenly speed up uncontrollably, scorning the driver’s panicky effort to apply any sort of brakes. Several crashes were unspeakably gruesome. A whole family died in San Diego. Toyota blamed these fiascos on old-fashioned mechanics — sticky pedals, slippery floormats — and good old “driver error.”

But when Toyota decided to risk a jury trial in an unintended acceleration lawsuit in Oklahoma, the plaintiffs hired a software whiz named Michael Barr to test the theory that Toyota’s software was to blame. Legal discovery provided Barr access to Toyota’s test lab. There, in prisonlike conditions, a team of engineers spent months reading millions of lines of code. What they found was that once in a blue moon, almost imperceptibly, a random “0” in Toyota’s code in a random car could — for just a split-second — turn into a “1.” Or vice versa. That infinitesimal switcheroo was all it took to put the gas-pedal into Nascar mode, shut down every braking system and send that ill-fated Toyota, with its luckless human load, careening at 85 mph into a bridge abutment, over a cliff or into a school bus.

Barr testified. Toyota lost. A lady named Jean Bookout, who suffered brain damage, shared $3 million with the family of Barbara Schwarz, who was killed in the crash.

Needless to say, automakers haven’t begun to master software thoroughly enough to render the steering wheel obsolete. Given Barr’s revelations about Toyota’s fatal codefarts — made worse by Toyota’s refusal to admit that they didn’t know software from beachwear — it’s safe to say that safety isn’t why carmakers want to replace every normal car on the road with a spanking-new $70k HAL 9000 self-driver.

They’re in it for the money.

But you already guessed that, right?

So far, the auto industry’s plans to re-engineer the very concept of driving has been flying under the radar. But I think that when drivers finally wise up to the notion that Detroit wants to replace our steering wheels with a robo-program, the “autonomous car” will veer off the road and hit the proverbial bridge abutment.

I mean, imagine what would happen if you tried to take away America’s Remingtons, Glocks and AK-47s. Then, double it.