Quote:
Originally Posted by gaby
Zero stars, unbelievable!
Should such cars still be allowed on the road?
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I think that the Panda had four stars in a previous test. It is no more dangerous now than it was then but the testing standards and parameters have changed, but most of all they expect almost ridiculous levels of autonomous crash mitigation technology, the same as fitted to Volvo, on even the cheapest of cars. Cheap and this technology are almost incompatible.
As you probably know, it is currently compulsory for new cars to be fitted with airbags and abs and tyre pressure monitoring. Very very soon are to be added autonomous emergency braking and emergency assistance communication systems. The reason for including the latter isn't what it may seem at first glance.
The reason is actually so that sat-nav and the system that broadcasts telemetry becomes standard by the time 75%+ of all new cars sold are electric. At that point the loss of revenue from lost annual road tax really hurts the economy and it has to be replaced and added somehow to electric cars. They will be taxed per mile and eventually automatically fined for exceeding speed limits and so on. Big expensive brother in your car.
The point maybe further not realised is that this point is closer than you think. Electric car sales are slowly taking off and will increase exponentially over the next few years. I reckon that by 2025, some seven years away or less, that 75%+ threshold will have been punched through. By 2022 or so we should see the price of oil drop like a stone due to overproduction and that will be the end of oil as the dominant road fuel.