From famed automotive journalist Jason Torchinsky comes a witty
insider's guide to self-driving cars, the automated future, and the road
ahead.
Self-driving cars sound fantastical and futuristic and yet they'll soon
be on every street in America. Whether it's Tesla's Autopilot, Google's
Waymo, Mercedes's Distronic, or Uber's modified Volvo, companies around
the world are developing autonomous cars. But why? And what will they
mean for the auto industry and humanity at large?
In Robot, Take the Wheel, Torchinsky, cofounder of The Autopian and
former senior editor of Jalopnik, star of Jason Drives, and producer
of Jay Leno's Garage, gives a colorful account of the development of
autonomous vehicles and considers their likely implications. He
encourages us to think of self-driving cars as an entirely new machine,
something beyond cars as we understand them today, and considers how
humans will get along with these robots that will take over our cars'
jobs, what they will look like, what sorts of jobs they may do, what we
can expect of them, how they should act, ethically, how we can have fun
with them, and how we can make sure there's still a place for those of
us who love to drive, especially with a manual transmission.
This vibrant volume brimming with insider knowledge, humor, and original
artwork pushes us to reconsider our understanding of cars, raises
fascinating ethical questions, and compels us to act now to shape the
automated future.
