when so many find themselves worlds apart. she still looks for common ground. the christian doctor in the u.k. it fails to get his sacking overturned and an employment tribunal after he was fired for refusing to use different pronouns for transgender people. for people at the police headquarters in paris new tracker who has been identified as an i.t. specialist was shot and killed by officers. and us democrats rallied to protect the blower whose claims have triggered an impeachment inquiry despite previously seeking to prosecute those who revealed uncomfortable truth. the latest on the story's going to argue dot com coming up the former vice president of general motors is the guest on sophie and co talking about cars stay with us.

welcome to sophie cohen visionaries i'm sophie shevardnadze and driving cars are already on the road but how will it change the way we live well i had a chance to talk about this with the legends of american auto industry former vice chairman of general motors robert lutes. blood's it's great to have you with us welcome to moscow thank you right so you are saying that in 1520 years human driven vehicles will be replaced by man. what makes you think it will happen so soon i mean. parts of the world will see how people are there like driving horses and carriages i mean that kind of proves that. go away so quickly it's true

i may be a little optimistic with 15 or 20 years it could be you know 15 to 30 but it is going to. the most people think because it's the 3rd. no it was available. for instance in the united states we're seeing the 1st fleets of unmanned robotic taxis hitting the streets of san francisco in 2019 and i think once it starts in the large cities it will it will make very rapid progress because people will find that it's a much more efficient and safer form of transportation so i'm skeptical about all of that so let's go point by point because i'm an old fashioned kind of girl 1st of all you saying that eventually human terrain cars will be banned from highways as potentially dangerous and does that mean that was there but only autonomy models on the road there will be no more accidents. well i think you know the general

consensus is that accidents will be reduced by 93 to 96 percent so will there be the occasional malfunction or will we have a situation where the autonomous vehicle is placed in front of a moral dilemma for instance suddenly the autonomous vehicle sees a child in its path but it can't stop because it's going too fast and the other alternative is to go off to the side and hit a tree so does it run over the child and keep the driver safe or does it keep the child safe and go off and run into a tree and there will be cases of call a moral dilemma where the vehicle whichever choice the vehicle makes is going to be the wrong choice well i mean that's the that's the whole point of being this point i think is also selling the trust 1st of all psychologically when you're in an

autonomy as car how do you trust a robber i mean we see it like you've just given me an example of how there would be problems with the dilemma which dracula a child or do i hit a tree and killed the driver or like well let me know that and autonomy is car has killed a cyclist i mean he only takes a few accidents like that and then you know in a new film that people won't be able to believe but the companies on that day were the volvo in the united states hit the woman with the bicycle 1st of all all of the autonomous vehicle features of the car had been disabled and basically the driver was in control so that's not the press like that but on that same day in the united states 130 pedestrians or cyclists were killed by normal cars driven by humans. nobody talks about that so no. nobody is trying to say

that there will be 0 accident but it will be less than that and think of what we have today but how do you sell the trust the people psychologically well because it will stick because when you are in charge you are in charge and you can blame yourself but when we see drones killing the wrong people all the time right let me let me remind you of the days when people wouldn't get into an elevator unless there was a friendly elevator operator who held the handle and made sure everybody was there and then he closed the doors you remember the old scissors type of crisscross the need to close the door then the outer door would close and then he'd move the handle and co to the next floor and now we're in autonomous elevators and nobody worries about it and all of the airports have autonomous trains that take you from terminal to terminal so it's just a call it's just a question of people getting used to it and then we we shouldn't forget that. the

1st couple of 1000000 users especially in the united states are not going to be. individuals the 1st couple of 1000000 users are going to be fleets take fedex. u.p.s. and the u.s. postal service is going to happen to all those trying drivers are they going to be out of business well you know what happens in every industrial revolution has people are displaced from one area and over time they have to find jobs in another area but yes i think anybody who makes their living as a delivery driver or a garbage truck driver or a bus driver or a taxi driver is in a couple of decades is going to have to find something else something else to do i regret it myself i mean i'm a passionate driver i used to participate in automobile races i like nothing better

than high performance cars. i like to think i'm a better driver than most people so will i miss it well yes i will know why it won't because i'll be dead by that time but also i think. we're going to talk a lot about the psychological aspect and cultural aspect as well before we get to that i do a lot of stuff about cyber crime and i know how easy it is to actually still something online so you know considering that this car will be completely automated and you know why or to the old line industry it's going to so much easier to steal it now i mean you just have to hack into and right away you don't even have to break the glass or the wire well. these vehicles will have to be very much hard from a know what chronic standpoint to avoid hacking into them and disrupting the system and of course that's the problem of malware or malfeasance or people

abusing the system. really exists in. anything we do it mean it's like we do electronic banking and then you say well we can't of electronic banking because somebody could hack into your account and steal your money well yes they could but and in some cases that happens but we still believe in electronic banking and just because there is some risk of. electronic interference doesn't mean that we shouldn't enjoy the benefits of the technology so also thinking how do you sell that to americans because americans are fiercely independent they hate any kind of government intrusion or control over them some is there a car that can be stopped. automatically for and you know you're stopped for tax evasion or a car that ultimately drives you and decide where to go i mean how do you

how does that sit with the concept of americans being free and super individualistic well if that is that is a problem and you do give up certain freedoms you give up the freedom of. being able to vote to violate the speed limit. traffic is so regulated today. you know which lanes here are supposed to be you know where you're supposed to go do you have to stop at stop signs you have to not go over a certain speed so i mean human traffic human driven traffic is very tightly regulated today and you say well. probably when they put the speed limits in 50 or 80 years ago people said this is outrageous i don't want to be told i can only do 80 kilometers an hour i want to be able to do 130 kilometers an hour but people get

used to these things and. at some point it's not going to be. it's not going to be a matter of choice but because it's some point when say a city government or a state government or even the national government figures out that the remaining 30 percent of human driven vehicles are causing 95 percent of the accidents what the government does is says ok that's it you have 5 years to dispose of your car and start using autonomous vehicles like everybody else but at the end of 5 years we were going to take your vehicle off the road and that's you know it's not popular but unlike if you try to think guns away from americans you're going to have a revolution because that violates the 2nd amendment of the constitution which is

you have much less that's. going to please if you try to take guns away you're going to have a revolution but if but for the ability to drive a car there's no constitutional amendment that says you have a god given right to drive your own car. and you're not really taking anything away because the actual mobility will be improved the ability to go from point to point quickly will be improved and the the time that you have available for your personal use will increase because when you leave work to go home you get into the autonomous module and you can do anything you want you know you can pull the curtains and go to sleep or you could have your of your 1st drink of the evening no worry about being pulled on one for it and the thing is you see let's let's an

excellent point. when we. think about how unreliable human beings are we would not get into a taxi or a bus because human beings go to sleep they drink they have moments of inattention. we text on the phone while driving and so forth these are 0 practices that lead to a lot of accidents we still don't know how reliable robots are either because that's still a big question i mean maybe statistically you're saying in the future we're going to have a ratio where robots make less mistakes in humans but we still don't hang out that way when we do the latest technology of autonomous vehicles as developed way more which is a division of google or. general motors with using cruise automation which is of a west coast stuart of the general motors part of the vehicles have.

only of thomas test fleets in the united states they have to report the number of resets per month reset means that there was a failure and you had to reset the car. general motors and way mow are down to like 0 resets per month these things just work and work work work and never have a problem we're going to take a short break right now when we're back we'll continue talking about how our lives will change with self driving cars on our roads taking over the manual cars talking to axial general motors robert let's stay with us.

the be. same wrong roll just don't all. get to shape our lives just to get the ticket and engage with. the trail. once and many find themselves worlds apart. just to look for common ground. in 2040 you know bloody revolution is here to correct the demonstrations going from being relatively peaceful political protests to be creasing the violent revolution is always spontaneous or is it still war here i mean your list put video at 3 in the new bill is that i do believe it or the former ukrainian president recalls the

events of 2040 and. those who took part in this today over 5000000000 dollars to assist ukraine in these another goal that will ensure a secure and prosperous and democratic. and we're back with. general motors robert let's. do you feel like americans will eventually completely forget how to drive. i think in another 30 or 40 years we will have a situation where little grandchildren or little children ask their great grandparents. is it true that these cars used to have people driving

them and great grand. that's what we used to do that kind of scan. and. then the kid says but is a true that you'd have 2 lane roads where one car would go this way at 100 kilometers an hour and another car would go this way in a 100 kilometers an hour. on the ground great grandfather would say that's what we did. the kids would say we'll didn't you didn't you sometimes hit each other. sometimes up and kids will shake their heads and say i don't know how you people did that then why not leave that option to the humans of actually also be able to drive if they want for instance in any the automation of flying it's also happening but in a very different way with automated car that drives your seats total control to you at this point i don't know what's going to be like 15 years. with planes it's like

a commented piloting row it lets you drive but doesn't let you do anything stupid why not go down that road when it comes to me because you won't get the efficiency the efficiency. d. congesting the city's improving the throughput on the flow of transportation on any given road the minute you start blending human driven cars in with the robotic cars you lose the efficiency because then all the robotic cars are slowed down by the poor human reactions and the poor driving habits of the human being compared to a. compared to a robotic car i'll give you an example if if you stand at a traffic light and you are number 6 or number 7 down in the traffic light goes from red to green. you can count to 3 before the 1st person oh you know and starts to move then it's another one to 3 before the 2nd person goes so after 10 cars

you've got 30 seconds which is most of the light so if your number 10 in a line of cars waiting for the light to change probably you're not going to get through it because everybody has wasted 3 seconds waking up whereas with. a line of autonomous cars when that signal changes because these autonomous cars are all connected electronically when the light changes we're actually won't need a light with it can be an invisible signal. all 10 or all 15 cars will move it once and they'll move smoothly and with minimum minimum front to careers separation so all. blending human driven with autonomous is going to be a necessary thing in a transitional phase but it's not efficient and that but you say won't i want to

drive i want to and. it's going to be just like the horse today horses are no longer seen on the city streets of moscow or anywhere else. because they're not an efficient form of transportation they slow everything down. and frankly they're you know they're hazardous in a in and around automobiles but you can still if you if you're a horse fan you can still enjoy your horse you can enjoy it in the western united states and there are probably ranches in russia someplace where you can go right across the steps all you want and there are horsepower earns the riding stable sorry going to have car bars on the way and we will drive around whatever man you'll come to where it's starting in the states already there you have these automotive country clubs that are springing up around the big cities where the i would agree the well to do people can keep their cars at that country club where

they have government is cars in the future are going to be a luxury for people that are well off right and they will be collector's items and be like owning a horse today so what about the psychological concept i mean we've touched upon it earlier and he said well i myself love driving beautiful cars but also i feel like . driving a car is such an integrity part of american culture of becoming an adult like getting your driving license i mean driving coast to coast 6 to 6 i mean the whole concept of i'm going to take a drive to clear my head this is a very american thing because we like here in russia and europe which is go for a walk i mean how can that go away so quickly well it is actually already going away in the what we call the millennial you know who are kids that were born after after 2000 other wants to live in social media when once really mean they're much more interested in their phones and contact content and.

video phoning each other and so forth. that is what consuming their lives now is electronic technology in the form of handheld. vices and you say and many of them are not that eager to learn to drive because they've been driven around by mom all the time. and that's another. new freedom that people don't think about so much is the freedom to not have to drive your kids around all the time anymore in that you'll be able to send your small children to certain preprogramed known addresses you know like well known houses of friends or kindergarten or whatever to where the kids can take an autonomous vehicle to go to these priests pre-specified places. old people

who can no longer drive or who are partly blind or something like that will be able to safely navigate. sloan in one sense it takes away the freedom of holding a steering wheel. but it also replace is that with the freedom of being able to go anywhere anytime whether you're healthy you or not whether you could see or not whether you're asleep or not. whether you want to work on the way or it doesn't matter you just get into that mode you and it safely takes you where you want to go and that's that's a form of freedom the whole concept of turning this self driving cars into model s. is that they won't be oh right it's going to be like sort of like your personal train compartments not going to be you know they're all going to look at the same they going to all drive at the same you know the and then the american car industry is also based on individual expression i mean. all these cars that we see

advertised on t.v. they're alternately saying that if you drive me you're better than you know the person next to you really want what we call a habit and you don't. like let the south driving cars also be different from each other looks wise or well ordered or compartmentalise why take away that it won't be challenged but what's the utility of if only these modules belong to fleets amount of belonging to individuals what's the value in having a. b.m.w. or mercedes the public doesn't care because the public is going to only 6 these things will be owned by the large transfer more shay's and a lot of money is that's going to go out of business ultimately you know it's doomed or maybe they will focus on you know luxury is here we are afford this model is instead of the end but people aren't cannot own these things so if they don't

own them why bother. and so. outside the cities there will be no private ownership of you because the cities do not want these things cluttering up the city. the average automobile spends less than 10 percent of its time actually going someplace the rest of the time it's sitting around waiting for people to use it and that's the beauty of autonomous modules they'll be in use all the time. so but out in the country you know in the suburbs b.s. it's quite possible that people will still be able to own a car and they might be a van type. and they might have all their vacation and stuff in it you know tennis rackets and water skis and everything so that they can always you know basements but the problem is once them once they decide to use it it's going to have to

be entered into the computer controlled transportation flow they have the dad cannot sit behind the wheel and decide with what they're going to have to do they're going to have to program in their destination and then applied to enter into the traffic flow and that's literally take a couple of minutes and then they'll be entered into the traffic flow now one of the reasons why the city to city modules have to pretty much all be the same is because you're going to have on the big motorways. or freeway it's as it was with a column some places in the states. will probably have. inductive electric cables. which charge the batteries of the modules while they're on the freeway and. so these will be these cables will be

embedded in the concrete maybe $56.00 centimeters below the surface and on top of the modules. well have minimal separation between each other you know maybe $2530.00 centimeters max and they have to be like sausage wheels because when they're all together in a train they have to look like a big long snake and if if you take a train and you do this. with with it with the railroad cars you have a lot of air resistance which is why railroad cars are all long tubes and then they stop and then there's another want to because there's a minimal air resistance so on oh only models will join into this train and the train will probably go at like 300 kilometers an hour and when you get

close to your exit. your module will automatically separate out of the train and it will go into deceleration lanes the gap that your module left will be filled so that in a few seconds you known that it will be closed up again then your module goes under a reader where you will be charged for the number of kilometers that you spent on the on the motorway and then you proceed to roll them at destination but and so for urban use. makes play no role in urban use like 60 kilometers an hour or less. resistance isn't that big a thing but on the freeway it will be important for all of these modules to be

basically shaped like like a big cylinder and then there was hell yes on my help i will always. tell you it was 67 years later when i the time of this evolution is complete. you'll probably be at the point where you'll be cleared to sit back in a module and go someplace without having to do anything let's see what happens thanks a lot for this fascinating interview. i don't like it either it's going to happen because it is too all right let's all or just have to go along with it thanks a lot and i sneered you're quite welcome.

i think that indeed the elections will be the most. recent american history because the stakes are incredibly popular for both sides for donald trump this stake is small just implementation of his domestic politics but actually avoiding

prison for the democrats. is if we're doing even deeper crisis of the party base this is the traditional it's the problem itself able from bowl sunday.