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From: Newt Gingrich <no-reply@gingrichproductions.com>
Date: March 22, 2013 4:57:57 PM GMT-06:00
To: bobbygmartin1938@gmail.com
Subject: The Next Automotive Revolution
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The Next Automotive Revolution
We are on the edge of a revolution in automobiles that will transform our lives.
On Monday, March 25, at 4:00 pm EDT Newt University will have a special short course introducing autonomous (self-driving) cars. You can register and view here.
As I have discussed in several recent newsletters, coming advances in education, regenerative medicine, and materials science will improve our lives dramatically and shrink government as they return power to citizens and expand freedom.
Self-driving cars are just such an innovation. The potential is enormous and will change our lives.
Imagine you could roll out of bed at 5:30 in the morning and climb into the backseat of a car that had just pulled into your driveway. That you could continue to sleep as you were driven to work in the city, an hour and a half away, waking just as you arrived at 7:00 am. Imagine you could get back in the car and continue to work during your evening commute, leaving more time at home to spend with your family.
Does this sound like the life of a chauffeured New York executive or a famous television personality, perhaps? How does it compare to the average, frustrating commute millions of Americans make every day as they alternately accelerate and slam on their brakes for hours at a time, their coffee sloshing back and forth in its cup holder?
Imagine furthermore that if you are losing your eyesight (or you were born blind) you could get in your car and ask it to take you to a destination.
Or if you went to a party you could ask your car to drive you home safely and legally since it wasn't drinking anything.
Although the idea sounds like science fiction, driverless cars soon may in fact make this new capability a reality for millions of Americans. Google has developed a small fleet of self-driving cars which have safely traveled more than 500,000 miles on California roads, mostly unnoticed. You can watch one of its creators explain the project in this video. The car manufacturers are all scrambling to make self-driving cars of their own (Audi, Ford, Volvo, Toyota).
Widespread availability of automobiles was one of the great achievements in American history, incalculably increasing freedom, opportunity, and prosperity.
The self-driving car may create the second such automotive revolution to emerge from the United States, opening up new possibilities for people all over the world.
Self-driving cars will likely bring with them a cascade of changes -- some obvious, others less so.
That's why I'll be conducting an online short course at Newt University on Monday, March 25 to discuss self-driving cars and their potential to create a better American future. It will broadcast live at 4:00 pm EDT, but you can click here to register in advance. We'll make sure to send you a reminder on Monday.
The course will explore the many implications of this new technology.
For instance, because roughly 80 percent of car accidents are the result of driver error, there is good reason to think driverless cars could save hundreds of thousands of lives and hundreds of billions of dollars.
If the technology is so good that cars virtually never crash, our vehicles can be made from much lighter materials (since we won't need all the steel for protection), dramatically increasing fuel economy and lowering the cost of driving.
When cars can drive themselves from place to place as needed, many families will no longer need two cars, since a self-driving car can pick up teenagers from school and then return on-demand to pick up parents from work.
Or, perhaps just as likely, most Americans won't own their cars at all. They'll use a service with a large fleet of driverless cars which can be dispatched to them whenever and wherever they wish. This model is not much different from taxis, Zipcar, or Uber, but with no driver to pay, the price can fall close to the cost of operating the car. Such a system would make much more efficient use of the vehicles, collapsing the cost of driving and making ownership impractical.
Thomas Edison famously said, "After the electric light goes into general use, none but the extravagant will burn candles."
After driverless cars go into general use, maybe none but the extravagant will drive themselves.
Join us at Newt University on Monday, March 25 at 4:00 pm EDT as we explore these implications and many more to learn how self-driving cars might create a better future for all Americans.
Your Friend,
Newt
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