Our outlook of autonomous driving is much more positive after hearing what Johan de Nysschen had to say at the 10th annual J.D. Power Automotive Marketing Roundtable.The president of Cadillac delved into something that most auto enthusiasts have dreaded over: The future of autonomous vehicles and the influence it may have on the art of driving.
“Taking the fun out of driving by letting a robot transport us,” in de Nysschen’s own words, has plenty of us awake with scenes from Minority Report. Though driverless cars seem all but inevitable at this point, de Nysschen claims that “autonomous driving and driving passion must co-exist,” and that his brand is after “balance.”
What would this look like? Well, de Nysschen states that Cadillac wants to enhance the joy of driving, but eliminate the tedious parts. He backs these ideals with a critique of Google’s perception of the future.
“Many autonomous car (prototypes) emphasize sheer functionality. It would be a mind-numbing experience going from point A to B. My goodness, you might as well take the bus.” He went on to use the 2016 Cadillac CTS-V as a persuasive comparison, “you can feel the road surface through the seat and hear the symphony of a perfectly tuned engine. It gives you goose bumps. A fine automobile is one of life’s great joys.”
He briefly touched on GM’s semi-autonomous Super Cruise system, which will debut in the 2017 Cadillac CTS and 2017 Cadillac CT6, stating that the, “difference between Super Cruise and fully autonomous lays more in the legal than the technical arena.  I’ll leave it at that.”
Needless to say, de Nysschen’s words resonated well with us, and made us more open to the idea of autonomous vehicles. He went on to talk about Cadillac’s strategy for the Millennial market, for more, visit WardsAuto.
Comments
Totally agree, I’m all for these safety features like blind spot monitoring, auto braking, lane departure but leave the DAHM fun of driving alone. If you can’t drive don’t drive, if these nerds and hippies have it there way we will all be driving pollution free cars that ax out at 30mph. Go ride a bicycle
Actually, the way I think it’ll go is that there’ll be a two tiered speed limit system. Manually operated cars will limited and fully autonomous cars will have a considerably higher speed of travel.
If it was limited to 30mph, it would be way too inefficient.
I hope your right. It’s just that I have a feeling there not worried about being inefficient but that they are trying to making driving 100% safe. If it comes down to safety only then I hope your still right
It must kill Johan to have to toe the company line after Mary came out speaking in favour of autonomous driving and “secret projects” last week.
He doesn’t like EVs. I’d guess he’s even less enamoured of robotic driving.
I miss him coming out swinging, like he did when he first got to GM.
With Tesla’s new update that provides the Model S with autonomous driving, not sure why any one thinks its only one or the other.
Stop and go driving, take some of the stress out and let the car do the stopping and going and keeping an electronic eye on other cars.
Open road, take the wheel back, turn off the electronic assistants, and hammer down the pedal with 690hp.
Given the weather conditions that prevent a lot of the electronic eyes from functioning (as one of many reasons), and probably legal liability, I don’t think there is any way that there won’t be a steering wheel and set of pedals on any cars, as long as we’re still driving on roads.