Traditionally, the big changes in cars carried out by the automotive industry about every seven years. However, if we take into account the technological developments, the changes that are already taking place in the climate but also the living conditions in the big cities, maybe we can draw some conclusions about what cars will be like many, many years later, say in 2050.
The companies are already making presentations about the cars of the future, while experts are imagining a safe car to stop the bloodshed on the highways since 1,2 million people are killed every year, worldwide, in traffic accidents. We asked the car racing driver, Tassos Iaveris, to describe his vision.
- How do you imagine the car of the future?
The car of the future should be equipped with such electronic and software systems that will eliminate its brainless driver-driver. The car has become the most destructive weapon in recent decades, with numbers of dead, disabled and maimed greater than those of a war. And all this happens because when people get into a vehicle they have neither the education nor the knowledge of what kinetic energy means, what are the laws of physics, what does loss of control and collision mean. I consider as a solution of the future the cars to remove the driver, to accept with a voice command or with a keyboard the route that the passenger wants to follow and to take him. This is the ideal for me, in terms of human safety.
- Do you think the steering wheel can be removed? Driving is a pleasure for some people.
This is a wrong approach. If you want to drive for pleasure, you can do it in a special area without the risk of injuring someone with the right trainer.
The autopilot technologies mentioned by Tassos Iaveris are already in progress. Audi envisions a car that with suitable sensors will interact even with passers-by, to protect them from accidents. The operations inside the smart car will be done with voice commands and virtual reality technology.
Plans for flying vehicles are underway and a Japanese company is trying to build huge drones that will act as cars. The goal is mainly, the speed in the daily movements.
Tassos Iaveris comments: "We also hear about flying cars, we will end up circulating the world down with ο iron umbrellas if something like this happens, to prevent spare parts from falling from the sky, from the collisions of people who will lead with their minds to the! Railings!
The car is unfortunately misunderstood as something easy, simple, painless and harmless. Look at the concern of the people and the coverage made by the media and political systems regarding the victims of earthquakes, forest fires, floods and hurricanes. In the last 50 years in Greece we have about 250 victims of earthquakes. In the same period there are 120.000 dead and 350.000 severely disabled and mutilated by traffic. We are talking about a genocide.
My hope is not to make flying cars but thinking cars. "I recently heard that in the next five to ten years companies will start replacing the human brain with the advanced electronic brains of technology, without emotional intelligence of course."
Augmented virtual reality
Electrification and change in our mentality
Tesla electric cars that promise safe movement, have a nice and modern aesthetic have already brought a new era in driving. Already, sales of the "Model S" in Europe have increased by 30% and perhaps this is the reason why almost all major companies have an electric car in the pipeline and want to launch it immediately.
A large study by Georgetown University and IMF researchers predicts that by 2040, 90% of cars in America, Europe and Canada will be electric. In the future, we may have a major upheaval in the vehicle ownership mentality. Once they are so autonomous in both their catering and operation, researchers say, people may stop treating them as products and may begin to see them as services. It is predicted that we will have more and more companies that will not sell cars but will offer them for transportation for a certain period of time.
Urban transport will play an increasing role in urban mobility and in serving the citizens: "This should be the future", says Tassos Iaveris and continues: "Now if a person feels the need to satisfy his arrogance or his vanity in buying cars of great powers that run a lot when nowhere on the planet are you allowed to exceed 120 kilometers or to run in cities where children and people play is another matter ".
- And with the electric drive that we hear more and more often, what is happening, Mr. Iaveris? What is your opinion?
The issue with electrification is to get energy from alternative sources and not from pollutants. The pollution part of the planet is really a nightmare. The planet will not suffer anything like a piece of soil and matter. The passengers of the spaceship Earth are in danger of disappearing. When we say that we want to be ecologists, the car must be charged by alternative energy batteries. From a panel of solar panels or from wind turbines.
The evolution of cars could not but include the internet. The vehicle will provide the driver with information about the weather, traffic, will be connected to other vehicles and the exchange of information will be allowed. Even through the tires, the vehicle will be able to receive information about the quality of the road or its slipperiness in order to adapt its speed to the respective conditions.
His cars of the future will be luxurious, says Mike Ramsey from research firm Gartner. It will be like small lounges, with facing seats, a place where one can send e-mails and generally do one's homework during a trip, he told the Guardian.
Will Greece ever launch its own car?
In a Greece living in the midst of an economic crisis, the question seems rather naive. On the other hand, we hear about small but significant efforts to produce a vehicle: the passion probably exists. Neighboring Turkey assembles and produces cars and dreams of launching its own brand by 2021, as Erdogan had stated in 2017.
- Could Greece in the future produce its own car like Mr. Piaver Mr. Iaveris once did?
The Pony you mention to me was a car that could not pass anywhere today in terms of either passive or active safety. It was all sheet metal. I find it difficult for Greece because there are no investors with available money and we also have the brain drain, the young people that the investors could take advantage of have gone abroad. I would not rule it out but I find it very difficult.
The investor wants a stable tax environment, he wants zero bureaucracy, does he need people who have graduated from higher education institutions with knowledge of whom he will use? Will he bring his own world from outside? It will certainly take many years to become a serious car manufacturer that will build cars with the right specifications, of today, not of the Pony era. The Turks have built a war industry, they are preparing for nuclear weapons… Turkey is not a measure of comparison, we are behind.