Autonorama: The Illusory Promise of High-Tech Driving

The danger of a driverless future built on false promises“The foundation has been laid for fully autonomous,” Elon Musk announced in 2016, when he assured the world that Tesla would have a driverless fleet on the road in 2017. “It’s twice as safe as a human, maybe better.” Promises of technofuturistic driving utopias have been ubiquitous wherever tech companies and carmakers meet. In Autonorama, technology historian Peter Norton argues that driverless cars cannot be the safe, sustainable, and inclusive “mobility solutions” that tech companies and automakers are promising us.The salesmanship behind the driverless future is distracting us from investing in better ways to get around that we can implement now.Unlike autonomous vehicles, these alternatives are inexpensive, safe, sustainable, and inclusive. Norton takes the reader on an engaging ride-from the GM Futurama exhibit to “smart” highways and vehicles-to show how we are once again being sold car dependency in the guise of mobility.