When cars first made their appearance in the late 19th century, these so-called “horseless carriages” were mostly just curiosities and something only for the rich and adventurous.
Thanks to Henry Ford and his innovative manufacturing process, cars became more widely available and became the staple form of individual transportation that we know of today.
That doesn’t mean they come cheap. Even with economies of scale and efforts to improve efficiency, cars are still costly pieces of engineering. Even the cheapest budget cars still take a significant amount of money to own.
Watch this driver navigate his jeep through a precarious trail below.
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Video credit: Rumble
With that being said, it’s amazing how much utility has come out of such a transport vehicle. From simply transporting people, cars have evolved to take on many roles, as scout and armed transport vehicles through two world wars to the sleek racing machines we see in Formula One and Nascar derbies.
Cars are not so much a means of transport as it is a status symbol nowadays. The ordinary office worker can make do with the basic sedan that gets one from Point A to Point B and a lot of practical people are happy enough if their car can do this one basic function reliably.
But once you get to vice-president level or higher, then a more luxury brand is needed, such as a Lexus, to reflect the upgraded social status that one has.
Tesla has been pushing the envelope, not just with their electric cars but their so-called autopilot that can seemingly take the driver out of the equation. Even though this feature isn’t really mature yet, some Tesla drivers have been so confident of the technology that several of them have been caught on camera sleeping on the wheel on the freeway while their car drove itself to wherever it was they were headed!
One would think that perhaps five to ten years from now, true driverless technology may become widespread and people would ride in their cars the same way they ride the bus or cab, busily doing something else while their vehicle takes them to their destination.
While that may hold true for the city, there are those drivers who still want to push their skills and their machines to the extreme.
And for these people, those automatic functions just won’t do. Nothing beats the thrill of literally holding your own life in your hands, just as this Jeep driver did in the video when he navigated through a trail that even someone on foot would hesitate to step on.
The driver seems to have the genes of a mountain goat and nerves of steel as he/she carefully nudges the vehicle even as it leans at a precarious angle until it successfully crosses the difficult path.
Machines may be taking over a lot of what we do but they’ll never really take over everything that gives humans a thrill.
Replaced!