November 4th. 2005.
Somewhere in my archives is an article entitled "Why I may never sell my old Porsche".

My 944 is by far the best balanced car I have ever owned and not just because the 50/50 weight distribution makes it handle like
a dream, but because it's reliable, easy to repair and gets a consistent 28 mpg in town and 35 mpg on the highway at a very illegal
85 mph.

But what is coming at us down the pike? A phenomenal amount of unreliable and expensive gimmicks. 
I'm glad I'll be long gone before all of this nonsense hits the show rooms:

Read on.

Satellite navigation. That call-the-emergency-services button on the dashboard of your expensive car. Tracking devices.
Pay-as-you-go automatic tolling. Active cruise control. These are yesterdays sci-fi, todays commonplace.
But as the pace of technology speeds out of control, could we be heading somewhere we really don't want to go?

Already there are systems being developed which will automatically restrict your cars speed to the posted limit, however appropriate
or otherwise that limit might be given the time, the place, the capability of the car and the capability of the driver.
Public acceptance, and the difficulty of retro-fitting such systems to older cars, are the only barriers to this automotive Big Brother.

Also, insurance companies are trying out systems which record how and where you drive, so you might get a lower premium if you
crawl everywhere and never venture far. Such systems place no reward on driving skill or car control, provided you don't actually
crash into anything. With more technology comes ever more dumbing down, as drivers are asked ever less to be responsible for
making decisions.

Trouble is, carmakers can't help developing these systems because they're always looking to put technology to new uses and gain
a competitive advantage.

Take, for instance, accident-avoidance technology. We can have vehicle-to-vehicle telematics, determining where a vehicle is relative
to another. So if there's a car broken down on a curve ahead of you, and you can't see it, then the cars can communicate and your car
can brake automatically. You'd get a warning before braking, perhaps on a heads-up display, and if you didn't react the car would brake
anyway.

Other examples are a driver's seat which vibrates on the appropriate side if another car is within your rearward blind spot, and GPS
control of the spacing of cars to optimize traffic flow on a busy road. It's all about reducing energy, emissions and congestion, and
increasing safety.

And then comes the killer issue:

Liability. With this technology available, why would a carmaker let a car go over a speed limit? And what about the privacy issues?

Imagine someone steals your Corvette and crashes it at high speed, causing injury to someone else. Who does the injured party sue?
They can't reasonably sue you, nor the car thief who probably isn't insured and would have no funds. Do they sue the carmaker?"

Such concerns make technology such as automatic accident avoidance and GPS-controlled car spacing risky for a carmaker,
who might be deemed liable if the systems went tragically wrong even if - as seems reasonable given that the systems discourage
a drivers engagement with the process of driving - the driver wasn't paying full attention.

Technologically, there are already systems which can affordably tell where every car is at all times.

Now I have to ask: what does society want to do with this?

And  that's not the end of it.

Stepping on the brakes. Hitting the accelerator. Turning the steering wheel.

Motorists of the future will have little tolerance for such old-fashioned ways of operating their cars thanks to the emerging drive-by-wire technology.

In most cars, it takes an assortment of cables, fluids and mechanical components to translate what the driver does into what the car does.

Drive-by-wire, already used widely in planes, where it is known as fly-by-wire, and where cost of maintenance is not an issue,
means employing electronics, rather than mechanical and hydraulic systems, to operate a vehicle:

Steering columns and brake lines give way to sensors and actuators. Steering wheels can be replaced with joysticks or driver control
units and human-machine interfaces.

Companies are now placing drive-by-wire technology in several prototype vehicles, including General Motors Corps fuel-cell-powered
Hy-Wire, and the Novanta, a Saab-based concept developed with Italian design house Bertone. 

Novanta has no accelerator or brake pedals -- only a mechanism called a human-machine interface that looks like a cross between an
aeroplane steering wheel and the handlebars of a motorbike. Rotate the handles back and forth to throttle the car up or down; squeeze
them to brake, turn them side-to-side to steer.

The system uses sensors to read the driver's actions and transfer the information to controllers called smart electro-mechanical actuators.
The actuators convert electrical energy into force to perform vehicle functions.

When the driver attempts to turn the car, for example, sensors, rather than a steering column, send that information to the steering rack
to turn the wheels.

In addition to the technologies found in Novanta, there will be by-wire systems to handle emergency brakes and clutches.
Eventually, it hopes to develop suspension-by-wire to improve vehicle ride and handling.

Drive-by-wire systems are supposed to help fuel economy because they reduce losses in engine power caused by the continuous
running of systems like power-steering pumps.

In addition, they liberate car designers, even the worst ones, by removing bulky devices and theoretically allowing the controls for
steering, braking and other functions to be placed just about anywhere in the vehicle.

A brake-by-wire system literally cuts the cable from the brake pedal to the brakes, gets rid of fluid, fluid lines ... now they can position
the brake pedal anywhere they want.

Driver controls on the Novanta fold into the driver-side door when not in use.
The control unit on Hy-Wire slides from one side of the vehicle to the other, allowing the car to be driven from the driver or
passenger seat.

With their futuristic, gee-whiz designs, drive-by-wire concept cars like Hy-Wire and Novanta are a guaranteed hit at auto shows.
But the by-wire vehicles that will first hit the streets will look and feel a lot more like the vehicles we drive today.

It's just a way of introducing people to the technology. People are accustomed to interacting with their vehicles in a certain fashion,
especially older drivers, that's why the keyless car still has keys.

In some cases, engineers working on drive-by-wire vehicles are even using force-feedback technology, similar to what is available in
some video game controllers, to mimic the mechanical feel of a vehicle, such as the vibration drivers feel when revving up a car.

We feel through our hands what's happening, and that helps us understand what's going on with the vehicle and that helps us control it,
eventually, when the Nintendo generation is running the world (yech!), maybe you don't need that kind of thing at that point.

You may not realize it, but many drivers have already experienced a version of drive-by-wire: electronic throttle control.
That commonly used technology eliminates the cable that traditionally connected the accelerator pedal to the throttle, which is the valve
that regulates air and fuel flow.

Also, some high-end vehicles have by-wire parking brakes that automatically lock when the vehicle is parked and release when
driving resumes.

Full drive-by-wire systems that include electronic steering may be about a decade away (thank heaven).

One barrier to wider use of drive-by-wire is the limited electric power available in most cars, usually 12 volts.

Hybrid vehicles, which can generate their own electricity, are therefore a perfect application for drive-by-wire and the perfect reason
for us vintage car enthusiasts to be hanging onto our cars for as long as possible..........