Wasnt that long ago people were grumbling that requiring seat belts in cars was
commie socialist stuff.
Today, the commie label is applied to decidedly more high
tech innovations, which we list herewith: Top 5 ways The Man is changing your
car.
5. Autonomous cars.
You know, self driving.
Nevada and California forced the
issue recently, now the feds are playing catch up, likely to issue national rules by
2016.
That will be a signal that opens the floodgates of investment in cars that
take over that 80% of driving that we dont really want to do anyway.
4. Distracted driving rules.
The NHTSA has been floating some tortured
proposals for limiting in-car distraction.
Like limiting text displays to 30 characters
at a time...or any screen-based task to 2 seconds or less - they havent used an
Android phone, have they?
Whatever the specifics, this federal push will be what
moves distracted driving into the same level of stigma as DUI.
3. Rear cameras.
This ones been delayed more times than Blackberrys
comeback, but the feds are close to requiring back up cameras in all vehicles,
perhaps by late 2014.
Carmakers say it will jack up car prices too much, but most
likely they dont want to lose the ability to make rear cams a desirable option
rather than a standard feature.
2. Black Box data recorders.
Theyre already in 90+% of late model cars --
betcha didnt know that -- but the feds will soon require them in all new cars sold.
The gripe here is that the feds can require the boxes, but the states control
access to the data - and barely more than a dozens of them have laws that
address that.
1. 54.5 MPG.
Thats the fuel economy level that must be met by the average of
all cars sold by any maker as of 2025.
Its an incredibly complicated formula, but
still a huge bump from todays 29.7 fleet average in not that many years.
This
will mean 3 cylinder engines, turbos in everything, hybrids galore, cars that shut
themselves off all the time and electric cars on lots even if almost nobody buys
them.
And its estimated to add $3,000 to MSRP by 2025.
No federal rule will
change cars as much as this one.
