In the seventies, or even eighties, this scene would have been impossible to imagine, never mind predict. And what will we fail to predict today about Japanese cars in 2045? Care to make a stab at it?
CC Outtake: Who In 1978 Saw This In Their Crystal Ball?
– Posted on October 25, 2011
And what will we fail to predict today about Japanese cars in 2045? Car to make a stab at it?
Japanese cars will be to Korean cars by then what American cars are to Japanese cars (in the minds of some) today. Chinese cars will be to Japanese cars what Korean cars were to Japanese cars in the 80s and 90s. Except I’ve likely got my timelines wrong and this will all happen by the year 2020.
Even in the late 80s, after gas prices had collapsed, we wouldn’t have foreseen this. I think it was after seeing the first V10 Viper that I realized history can run backwards. And now every Target lot is filled with jacked-up barges that barely get better mileage than a 455 Vista Cruiser. Progress! (?)
Wow, that’s one hell of a picture.
“What will we fail to predict today about Japanese cars in 2045?” If I knew, I’d predict it. But then we wouldn’t have failed to predict it…..
I predict that Japan won’t have to build two kinds of cars, one for driving on the left and another for the right, because the cars will all drive themselves, like Google’s Priuses. (Cue the “out of my cold, dead hands” responses.) Ha ha, just kidding.
I predict that the size range will be the same, if not greater, and they will all be electric. By 2045 batteries will be cheap enough and charge quick enough that carbon-free electric SUVs and other large cars will be common. Commercials will show off trucks with enough torque to uproot trees. Neil Young’s just ahead of his time.
Having just seen a Discovery channel show about those Darpa-sponsored autonomous vehicle contest, I think by 2045 autonomous cars will be the norm for sure. Maybe it’s a lot sooner than that. Will oil still around in 2045? If not, then all cars would be powered by some other means than internal combustion engine.
Will manually driven cars be illegal or heavily LEO monitored by 2045? Will there be AutoDrive only lanes on the highway using the HOV lanes we have now, with traffic enforcement out the ass for the few who dare to drive their own?
Predictions: that cars will be even more like appliances than they are now, who cares how sexy your fridge is, you care how much food it holds and that the icemaker keeps working. Hoods will be sealed, even looking at the engine will be a violation of the warranty. Tires will all be run-flats, spares will be anachronisms like manual chokes.
Hmmm…I’m absolutely certain we will have flying cars long before then.
No worries here.
Amazing comparison photo just the same.
It does NOT represent progress.
Most people won’t own their own cars, Japanese or otherwise. Most people will subscribe to a Zipcar-type service where they’ll request a car to take them somewhere and a self-driving appliance will appear at their door on schedule and take them where they need to go, then head off to pick up the next person. There will be individual pods for commuting, trucks for hauling, etc. Individual vehicle ownership will be mostly by the rich and the collectors who keep the old, manually-driven cars, the last of which will have been built in 2033.
OK, but outside San Francisco, what will the automotive landscape look like?
Red Barchetta, Rush
The one on the right is not Japanese…anymore.
The one on the right never was Japanese its just from a Japanese manufacturer its sole market is the US. The joy of dirt cheap gas
Maybe the EPA/CAFE will finally eliminate all the loopholes for trucks and we’ll have a second Great Brougham Epoch.
First off, the lil’ Datsun looks positively puny next to that TRUCK. 🙂
That said, I predict that gas will be such that people will have learned that huge monstrosities like that truck will be no more as the costs to build, let alone drive them will be too much and people sober up to realize that they really didn’t NEED that huge a vehicle – for one person.
Introduce $10 gas and that ute would be in the scrapyard faster than you can say fill er up
Yes, and the worldwide standard of living would be in the dumpster, too.
When the price of fuel or any necessary commodity is based on political expediencies, rather than supply and demand, there are going to be wild swings on price. The winds of political pressures are extremely fickle. What you wind up with is industry gearing up whole new TYPES of autos; or governments borrowing to build intercity Disneyland trains…and then the price of energy drops as the political punishing factor is removed, and those cars are unsold; those gee-whiz trains empty.
Now, if somehow some really-clever government managed to get the price up and keep it up…we wouldn’t have to worry about carmakers’ histories as we shop for new ones. Because there wouldn’t BE a motor industry. Cars would be playthings of the rich and famous; production-runs and companies small; and the proles can jolly-well get their arses on the bus.
Amen, JustPassinThru!!
BTW my oldest son parked his ’93 Accord next to a current-model Civic.
Do I need to spell out which car was bigger…
Hah, a current Maxima is almost the size externally as an Impala. Who could have predicted that back in the 4DSC days?
Places like Japan Korea Australia Germany France have expensive highly taxed fuel and car industries that learned how to build cars that sell to their own and other populations. The US OTOH has low fuel tax and a goverment subsidised collapsing car industry that refused to adapt The US auto industry was protected with tariffs and othe corporate welfare schemes to specificly protect it from real supply and demand, including oil company tax handouts to keep prices low. The us car industry has never been exposed to any real market forces before so every time gas goes up there is total panic instead of a proper response as seen in other markets where gas prices play a real role in product development.
There’s a lot I’d want to say to that. I won’t; because it takes us into politics. There are other sites for that.
I WILL say, however…the nations you mention have their auto industries survive by EXPORTING. Those nations’ domestic markets are stagnant or contracting. They must sell to nations that do NOT tax autos and fuel heavily; or die, as Saab is doing; as Jaguar is doing.
The auto industry in the United States must survive by pleasing the consumer…GM bailouts notwithstanding. Bailouts cannot bring in customers. High import tariffs can kill a market segment; and have; but do not bring in new customers. Those just increase the cost of used product.
How persona freedom and the motor industry are intertwined, is a subject too lengthy and too heavily laced with politics to examine here. Suffice it to say, the one is dependent on the other.
I think the majority of cars sold in the U.S. in 2045 will be made in the U.S., regardless of manufacturer. There will probably come a time when the cost to transport cars over vast distances of water will be more expensive than building them close to where they’ll be used.
I seriously doubt there will be a US domestic car industry by 2045 its slowly disolving now unless you guys start buying Chevs instead of Hondas iy will be gone in 5 years.
Back in the 70’s, I wasn’t thinking about what cars would be like in the future. I was thinking about how great a car the Datsun B210 was and that cars couldn’t possibly get any better than this.
Back in the 70’s I was more concerned if the cars would last more than two years before rust appeared, plus start in the morning!
i’m all for flying cars or autonomous machines as well…..
as long was we can retrofit our 60s sleds! I’m all for a autonomous or flying 1966 Toro or Riva as we’ll still the be the coolest guy at the parking pad. 🙂
Make mine an autonomous, flying ’67 Eldorado! Fully AI with matter teleport drive, power hidden controls and manual overrides, of course. Black with white leather. Probably gay marriage will have gone through by then, so it’d be almost trivial to win the right to marry that car — and I might!
That photo is very impressive. It reminds me of how many Toyota Tacoma pickups I see, let alone Tundras, that are taller, longer, and have bigger tires than my 2003 Silverado – which, as a regular-cab short-box truck, is to my mind not really a small truck.
As far as guessing out so many years ahead, no go. No matter what I say, when 2045 rolls around my statement would be classified together with the pronouncement of the IBM guy in 1957 that there might someday be a need in the whole world for as many as five computers. I wouldn’t be surprised if my daughter was still driving something powered by internal combustion of petroleum products though.
Actually…my defense of big cars notwithstanding…I do miss the little Japanese pickups.
My first pickup was a 1979 “Datsun by Nissan” – the PL620 King Cab. Great truck; great all-around vehicle. Were it possible, were it legal, to make it today…I’m sure it would sell.
Even my 1995 Nissan, as devoid of character as it was, was a practical size for traffic and urban settings. Just a two-inch cab stretch, and it, too, would have been comfortable if not fun.
But that King Kong by Toyota? Thanks, I’ll pass…if I want a big truck, I’ll take a trip West and buy an old 1970s F-150.
Did you notice in news photos what Libyan freedom fighters prefer to drive? Not Tacoma monster trucks that’s for sure. Light pickups do the job best. Fast, sturdy, easy to fix, maneuverable, and best for those special moments when your truck has to start *right*now*.
Excellent photo feature on the DIY weapons of the Libyan revolution here:
http://www.theatlantic.com/infocus/2011/06/diy-weapons-of-the-libyan-rebels/100086/
Thats right as our army has found out with their useless Hummers theres such a thing as tooo big too heavy and cumbersome. Somewhere like a warzone you need tough not trash thats why for really harsh conditions armys pick LandRovers and the like or in New Zealands case the SAS in Afganistan lease local Hiluxs Check out some videos of large Guns firing out the side of those Toyotas tough trucks.
The evolution of military motorized transport…is a story unto itself.
For recon and messenger use…the first vehicles were motorbikes. Harleys on our side; BMWs for the Axis.
Then came the Jeep…or, GP. It was a breakthrough…no more of the rider slipping in the mud, going down with serious injuries. The Jeep could get him there, with his equipment; get through successfully a higher percentage of the time.
Then the refinements…the M151 Mutt, a sort of transistorized jeep that had sophisticated independent suspension…which had a bad habit of rolling the thing. Not so good.
The HMV, or HumVee, was to address those problems. Seating for for, in NHTSA-approved positions. Automatic transmissions, for all those G.I. Janes who didn’t want to bother with a clutch. Diesels, for fuel economy.
But they weren’t armored personnel carriers. That wasn’t their PURPOSE. And now that it’s deemed that they must be…they’ve been up-armored in backwoods engineering; and not so successfully.
I don’t blame the HumVee. I blame the non-comms and junior officers, who’re using these light-recon vehicles in ways not intended; exposing their men to extreme risk for expediency.
It’s not physically POSSIBLE to provide every man in an army with his own personal Armored Personnel Carrier.
Why blame the joes when it’s not their fault? How about the brass that makes them go out in vehicles that weren’t designed for the conditions they face today? How about the polished turds in the Pentagon and Congress that just insist on buying more humvees?
Theres that dead market segment the smaller light pickup/ute taxed out of existance but those utes still exist and are big sellers all over the planet we have em here along with huge Chevys but the little Jappas sell the best. A 70s F150 isnt all that big anymore but they were a useful size the modern versions you can keep Id rather get a Jap cabover at least I could reach the deck from the ground.