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Comment by pistonhead | Hacker News Reader

> you cannot beat the roar and power curve of a combustion engine around a track or twisty road. Hopefully they'll go like horses - electric cars will take over point to point transport, while ICE-powered vehicles will be for recreation

This this this. I think electric cars are great and should replace all non-recreational modes of transport. However, they simply do not compare to the joy and involvement you get from ICE cars. The sound and torque curve is critical for the experience, as is the involvement from a manual transmission and three pedals. I hope that petrol cars will live on.

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I was in rural France a couple of weeks back.

Idyllic, apart from motorbikes deciding to rev round those twisty bends every now and then. Everyone who lives near those twisty roads hate you. All of them mentioned the motorbikes.

I live in the middle of a city, the noise is high, but the really bad noise? Guys on motorbikes and ferraris and all the other petrol head vehicles. Revving up streets, powering from 0-30 as quick as they can, dangerous and noisy. The noise echos up the buildings and affects everyone in those buildings. Hundreds of people annoyed for one person's little thrill.

Personally I'm all for the complete banning of all these vehicles, right now, they are a horrid detriment to everyone in ear-shot of them, for the pleasure of one.

If you want speed, go to a race track.

I agree. I think recreational use of ICE vehicles is fine from an emission point of view, if not many people do it. But this noise is another matter. Those petrolheads are going to be exactly the ones with deliberately and obnoxiously loud cars and bikes.

This is 23 years into the future. If autonomous cars take off in that time, the future may be that you won't be able to drive a non-autonomous car on the roads.

If that were to happen, it would be the motorways first. I would guess. But it would mean that deaths would be significantly reduced.

Found this info from 2015: https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/reported-road-casua...

  Road deaths:1,732
  Seriously injured:22,137
  Total: 186,209 casualties of all severities

I predict attitudes are going to change where people driving on the roads especially when talking high speed will be banned.

If people aren't using petrol cars anymore then you won't have petrol stations every few miles, a full tank will become quite expensive as well due to lack of demand.

But hey, it's still a ways away. In my town there's an old sign at the entrance to the square saying that traction engines are forbidden. Today, cars drive through it.

What's normal today will change. Who knows how exactly, so enjoy it whilst it lasts!

I hope driving on the road will not be banned, but instead hope for the more strict law for a driver's license. Too many people pay not enough attention to driving, some may check emails, some may lack ethics, some may roadrage with ridiculous reasons, and so on. We are lucky that those people do not love driving and therefore are likely to welcome the introduction of autonomous cars. There would be an autonomous-only license in the future, bad drivers eliminated first (and shifted to autonomous cars).

I also believe realistically an abrupt change as a total ban on driving would not happen, and instead there will be a more gradual shift to the driverless society, which would only materialize at the time I become too old to drive. I am completely fine with it, by that time I would have enjoyed plenty of driving.

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