IEEE Technology and Society Magazine - June 2020 - 78

David N. Lucsko

Are We There Yet?
Are We There Yet? The American Automobile Past, Present, and Driverless
By Dan Albert. New York, NY: W.W. Norton, 2019, 389 pp., $27.95.

n the pilot episode
of The Sopranos,
Tony, opening up to
Dr. Melfi for the first
time, accounts for
his unhappy mood: "It's good to be
in something from the ground floor.
I came too late for that and I know.
But lately, I'm getting the feeling
that I came in at the end. The best
is over." When I first heard these
lines some twenty years ago, I felt a
pang of sadness too - not for the
decline of the world of organized
crime, of course, but for the decline
of my world, the world of the enthu-
siastic driver. Even then I could feel
it slipping away. Seas of drab bub-
bles on every new-car lot. State pro-
g ra ms designed to dr ive the
remaining cars of character from
the road. Casual conversations with
peers who said things like "you
don't need a car around here." For
me it was never a question of
need. I love to drive, and I always
have  -  the feel of the wheel, the
feedback of a proper three-pedal
setup, the way a snug seat hugs. I
also love the way good cars look,
everything from classic American
boats to European coupes. And lest
I come across as just another old
fool longing for his lost youth, I has-
ten to add that I was barely twentytwo when The Sopranos pilot aired.
Tony's words rang true because I

I

Digital Object Identifier 10.1109/MTS.2020.2991492
Date of current version: 18 June 2020

78

knew, even at twenty-two, that the
best was long over. I knew that I
had come in at the end.
With all of this in mind, Dan
Albert's new survey of automotive
history was an exceptionally diffi-
cult read. This has nothing to do
with his style, which is smart,
funny, and accessible. Nor does it
involve his analysis, which is sharp,
up-to-date, and informed by all the
right scholarly voices from the his-
tory of technology. Indeed, had
Albert tackled this project from just
about any other conceivable angle,
I would have breezed through this
review. Instead I read the book
slowly, with an all-consuming sad-
ness, and when I finished I had to
let my notes sit for a while before I
started to write. Why? It's all in his
title: Are We There Yet? The American Automobile Past, Present,
and Driverless.
Driverless. The very word sends
shivers down the spine of anyone
who genuinely loves to drive. And,
as Albert points out, those who
"love to drive" is a millions-large
and motley crew extending well
beyond the diehard-gearhead set.
Within Albert's circle, the "incognito
car guys," as he calls them, include
a nurse who swore "she'd never sur-
render her BMW convertible with its
stick shift for a driverless car"; an
"eco-conscious, lefty novelist" who
found a way to justify foregoing a
Prius in favor of a car with at least a
bit of soul; and his generation-hand-
IEEE TECHNOLOGY AND SOCIETY MAGAZINE

held-screen daughter, who doesn't
know a thing about cars but finds
going out for an aimless cruise
"relaxing." In my own circle there
are a number of old-school gear-
heads, myself included, but there
are also "incognito car guys" like
my mot her, who a lways rows
through her Golf's gears with glee; a
mild-mannered colleague whom
you'd never suspect would own a
firecracker of a hot hatchback; and
my fiancé, who grins every time she
pulls away from a light in her other-
wise unassuming CUV. For all of
them, what lies ahead is grim.
The driverless future that officials
at Google and Uber and research-
er s at count le s s schools a nd
think tanks hope to build - and
about which journalists of every
stripe have written with a booster's
zeal - would do away with every-
thing these "car guys" find rewarding
about our system of automobility.
Instead, as Albert reminds us every
few pages, we will live in a world
where automobiles will quite liter-
ally be just that: automatic shut-
tles operating in perfect harmony
and safety.
Or so we've been told. For in this
book, Albert cuts through all the
hype to get a better sense of where
we're really going. Using lessons
from the history of American auto-
mobility, he seeks the roots of the
high-tech optimism and the techni-
cal-fix mindset that make a driver-
less future seem so promising to
∕

JUNE 2020
IEEE Technology and Society Magazine - June 2020

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of IEEE Technology and Society Magazine - June 2020
