Why driverless Audi at Pikes Peak is sinister

CAR Online reader JenkinsComp has a bee under his bonnet about the new driverless Audi TT S unveiled today. It foreshadows a political drive to stop us driving our own cars - transferring power from individual to state. You have been warned...

In an unwanted display of ‘Vorsprung durch Technik’, Audi is set to undo any respect for its past motorsport successes when a driverless TT S coupé quattro tackles the infamous Pikes Peak Hill Climb in the USA. There's more to this than meets the eye, be warned...

Is Audi influencing politics and removing human rights so they can make money?

The Autonomous Audi TTS Coupé unveiled today is the direct result of work underway at the Volkswagen Group Automotive Innovation Laboratory (VAIL) – a collaborative effort set up by the Volkswagen Group Electronics Research Laboratory and Stanford University USA to 'advance' car technology. In other words to come up with new ways of making money by taking away our right to freedom of movement.

Currently in the testing phase, the Autonomous Audi TT S quattro is being developed for several still-to-be determined real-world driving challenges in 2010, including a possible drive up the legendary 12.42-mile Pikes Peak Hill Climb route in Colorado, USA. This will not be a competition run, however, and is separate from the actual Hill Climb Championships being staged in June 2010.

Maybe Audi is using the TT as a basis because it was crashed so often by incompetant Audi drivers when the first-gen TT came out, causing them to hurriedly fit a rear spoiler to subsequent production cars which can be seen in these pictures.

Whatever Audi's reason for using a TT, the reason for developing this technology is so they can make money; Audi would not fund an expensive project like this for the good of the people. Why isn't Audi putting this much effort into building lightweight, fuel efficient cars instead of the wastefully over-engined, heavy and boring rubbish they peddle now?

Why a self-steering Audi is bad news

Audi claims that the Autonomous Audi TT S project is not aimed at making motorists, or the thrill of driving, dispensable, but this is surely utter tosh. The ultimate use for technology like this is for the state to take control away from the driver, to make us all comply.

It says a lot about what Audi thinks of their customers' driving skills that it is developing technology for people too stupid to do something simple like drive or park their car. What happened to survival of the fittest anyway? If we believe this technology will help the idiots survive who otherwise might have crashed, the planet really will become over-populated, so Audi is effectively creating more human generated global warming via more demand for food and energy from a larger than necessary human population.

Dr. Burkhard Huhnke, executive director of the Electronics Research Laboratory, has noted that the technology found in the Autonomous Audi TT S quattro could help motorists respond more effectively to changing traffic conditions to reduce road congestion and allow better reactions to 'safety hazards'. The mysterious Dr. Huhnke also suggests the technology could return time to car owners by taking care of routine driving chores, such as locating an assigned space in a car park. Why? This isn't a chore? If you are unable to park, then you shouldn't have a driving licence anyway.

Dr. Huhnke confirmed my theory that Audi customers are often idiots, incapable of driving their cars safely: 'We believe that developing a car that can perform as well and respond as rapidly as a ‘professional’ driver, like a race or rally driver, will eventually be able to drive its way around incidents in a way that a ‘normal’ driver couldn’t. While a typical VW/Audi driver may freeze or make the wrong ‘correction’, the Autonomous TT S would be able to take over or guide the driver to escape from a critical situation. It could also compensate if a driver is "inattentive to conditions" or "distracted" but of course, it won’t prevent all accidents.'

How do you define 'innattentive to conditions'? Does this mean that if you go faster than the car thinks is safe, it will 'take over'? How does it know if you are 'distracted'? Big brother is truly watching over us...

The sinister part: Audi's vision of computer controlled roads

The Volkswagen Electronics Research Lab who created the autonomous Audi TT S quattro has been dreaming up a nightmarish 'safety' system 'to ensure a reliable autonomous drive that can perform a vehicle shutdown if it determines conditions have become unsafe.'

The Autonomous TT S is currently controlled by a computer located in the boot but in 2010 Stanford algorithms will be running in the car using Java real time receiving programming updates via telemetry with a range of 20 miles. Ultimately, it is envisioned that aerial towers will be able to send and receive signals to these cars in a manner similar to cellular mobile telephone aerials today.

Audi says that the vehicle includes a telemetry system that can transmit all vehicle parameters to a receiving station up to 20 miles away which can also shut down the vehicle remotely, or order the safety systems to engage and bring the car to a controlled stop.

My beef is, who will control these aerial towers in the future? The unelected European President and his stooges? Who will decide to shut the vehicle down remotely? How will they know there is not a system error and shutting you down will cause an accident? How will they know the exact conditions of the road surface where you are when power is cut? How will they know how close behind other vehicles are? What exactly will cause a shut down? Will they shut you down if you are speeding? Will they shut you down simply if you have visited a pub? How will they know if you had a drink or not? Will they shut you down if you have exceeded your weekly mileage quota? Will they shut you down if you visit the Nurburgring and are not appropriately insured? Will unmonitored wireless dead zones become lawless areas of speed and danger?

Audi has massively overstepped the mark with this idea, as this is a political argument that (yet again) the public have been given no chance to debate. They've really misjudged public opinion too. Something as potentially draconian as this needs a referendum, but politicians were never very good at actual democracy were they? Typically, they sell us an innocent sounding idea so we get used to something gradually, like sat-nav for example. Without this in every car, something like remote control would be impossible. So cars got sat-nav.

What can we do about this?

Write to your MP now to request that this heinous scheme is debated in parliament before it is too late. Boycott Audis. Demonstrate outside Audi dealerships. Be alert of schemes to erect aerials in your area and fight them tooth and nail. Lobby for improvements to the driving test over this kind of pointless wastes of technology and energy. Else we citizens of the European Superstate will be made redundant and treated like brain dead morons incapable of moving without causing an accident.

This is the worst kind of technology, simply there for the sake of it, so that a few people can waste more resources creating more pointless devices to do something that can simply be done by a human, just to make a few Euros. Why not educate drivers better to begin with? Just have a harder driving test right including how to park in a car park, motorway driving, skid pan training and how to control slides? Why the need for all this electrically powered infrastructure?

If ever a political party wanted a byline to win an election on, try this: Education, Not Legislation. People feel better and act better when they are well educated, yet we all hate being treated like idiots. Audi could do well to remember this too. Car enthusiasts have long memories.

findyourmp.parliament.uk/

www.europarl.org.uk/section/your-meps/your-meps

By JenkinsComp