There is much talk about the cars of the future, but shouldn't we also be talking about how we are going to convert the older cars on the road to a safer and eco friendlier mode of propulsion? Not everyone is going to be able to afford a new car with new technology unless they are extremely cheap, and I don't see that happening.

Even today with the nice cars we have, there are still a lot of older cars on the road, i.e. seventies and eighties models. In 10, 15, 25 years or more there will still be smog producing vehicles on the road. Take a look at how many old, oil burning cars are allowed on the road today! How about an inexpensive way to convert the vehicles we already have to be more eco friendly.

I will not be converting my Mustang to anything. It is my race car. I saw an episode last night about how computers will be controlling our cars (brakes, steering, acceleration, etc.). I use my race car at an old military airfield on road courses set up with orange traffic cones. I do NOT want some computer applying braking when approaching an object I know I am not going to hit. The races are all about driver ability. If computers are in control, it is all over.

well since your "race" car should not be a registered road vehicle you dont have to worry about your precious mustang. And what you saw was implying that "new" cars would have computer assistance and "accident avoidance measures" to make for a safer drive. Driver skill out of the picture, NO ONE should be driving like a maniac on the road whether or not they are a "skilled" driver.

What I think the OP was trying to ask is much like how cars have to meet emission requirements and how in the "future" when we have to get our yearly inspection some cars are exempt from certain requirements. Now dont quote me on this but IIRC cars before 1985 or something around that year only require a safety inspection, no emissions no nothing. So I am sure that is what will happen, most cars that still use petrol will be exempt from certain testing parameters.

Yet interestingly enough more and more cars are being outfitted to run on E85. so once the politics realize that the oil crunch is really here that legislation and so on will take proper measures to reduce the amount of fossil fuels. It will be much like how people have classic cars, they still have to buy lead additives and so on for the car to run properly.

Perhaps in the future petrol will be just an additive.

My Mustang race car is a registered vehicle, street legal when I don't have the racing slicks on it, is covered by insurance and passes state inspection. I don't drive like a maniac on the road. Our races are held in a closed environment. About 90 percent of the cars that race at our events are people's daily drivers. So what gets included on cars in the showroom are going to end up on the track.

It might happen that all of our older cars will no longer be able to access the freeways that have traffic control computers. Perhaps we can still use them on the back roads and side streets, but not on the high speed highways. It is only a matter of time before brake by wire, steer by wire, even CTC speed control will come into being, but they might kill some people while they work the bugs out of the system. Oops, maybe that word kill will knock my post off the forum. I already made that mistake with another word. Big Brother.