Corvette Will Be the Last Vehicle to Go Autonomous

All the talk about self-driving cars from Google and others sure to follow has been a little worrisome for those of us Corvette enthusiasts who actually enjoy climbing behind the wheel and – egads! – driving our vehicles the way they are designed to be driven.

The good news is that Corvette Chief Engineer Tadge Juechter recently made public comments that should allow enthusiasts to rest easy.

During Horsepower Wars, WWJ-950’s annual business breakfast at Duggan’s Irish Pub in Royal Oak, Michigan, Juechter said the Corvette will be the “last” vehicle to adopt driverless technology.

Juechter received huge applause from the audience of performance car enthusiasts when he said: “We probably as a group will be the last to adopt autonomous technology. The whole purpose of our cars is to enjoy the driving experience, not to check out your email while you’re moving from one place to the other.”

Juechter and other performance leaders from Ford and Dodge had other good news for enthusiasts, predicting that muscle cars of the future will continue to take advantage of technological advances with lighter-weight materials and more-efficient engines.

While we appreciate the fact that Juechter is looking out for us, we still are a little concerned about the notion that the government might stick its nose into our business and actually make it illegal to drive a car some day in the future.

If that did happen, how ironic it would be because right now, people are concerned that driverless cars are not as safe as having a human driver behind the wheel to make decisions. If autonomous vehicles ever prove to be much safer, though, then we could be facing a day when you might have to retrofit your 1967 Corvette big-block 427 with self-driving technology to make it legal to use.

What a sad day that would be for performance car enthusiasts!

But at least we know that Tadge is on our side for the foreseeable future.

Source:
Detroit News via GM Authority

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