Toyota recently announced that in the near future, all of its new vehicles will have advanced semi-autonomous driving features like Automatic Emergency Braking, Lane Departure Alert, Automatic High Beams and adaptive cruise control. I have a fair of experience with similar features from other brands, and admit that for a car that I use every day to go to work, or haul family around, or give to my family to use, they would be valuable and useful features. Getting them on a $20k Yaris would be a big deal.
But if it wasn’t already, it’s abundantly clear now that the way we are going to enjoy cars in the future will be very different from how we have in the past. This RA29 is with [qr]GaraGe at the moment, and it’s a clear reminder about how things used to be. What a car! In terms of performance, it is terrible in all respects, but the way that it communicates makes driving a modern car feel like pushing O and X on a Playstation controller. Lifting the hood on the Celica makes me feel like picking up a wrench. Lifting the hood on the FRS makes me feel like I need to spend money.
I firmly believe that a revolution is coming, both for new cars and for old. New cars are going to get even fancier, and faster, and complex. Old cars are going to become even more valued. I don’t know where I stand going forward… but I sure get the feels from stuff like this…
At least Gazoo seems to understand…
Old car feels, man. I’m having them too.
But it got precipitated by that Toyota Gazoo ad which you sent me and with which I looked up other versions.
The times, they are a changin’
Transport Canada has mandated that all passenger vehicles will require backup cameras from May 2018 to fall in line with USA.
http://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/rear-view-cameras-transport-canada-1.3829460