Baldo by Hector D. Cantú and Carlos Castellanos for January 08, 2023

no time like the present

We already have the technology. Pennsylvania just legalized driverless cars. California has had them for years.

Besides, the ‘64 Impala that Baldo wants would have been a beater when Sergio was Baldo’s age. When I started driving in 1982, beaters were from the mid ‘60s to early ’70s. There weren’t any ’50s cars left on the road here in Pennsylvania (other than preserved antiques), let alone a 1920s Ford Model T!

Feel confident that Baldo’s vision of the future won’t be happening, “Pretty soon.”

With the way people drive nowadays, I don’t ever see us going the Jetsons level

there is a quote, which i shall paraphrase, attributed to a Saudi prince, “my grandfather rode a camel, My father drove a Mercedes, I drive a Mercedes, my son shall drive a Mercedes, but his son shall ride a camel.”

“Take me somewhere.”

“OK!”

My daughter and son-in-law bought a new van this summer. The darned thing does everything but groceries.

We are a LONG way from driverless cars being normal. They need to finda way to keep them from running into things first because they can’t tell the difference between the sides of trucks and a clear sky.

We’ve had driverless cars around here for years, they arrived right after cell phones.

Yep.

I’m wondering why we are sometimes not getting the Spanish-language Baldo. I often learn new-to-me Spanish words there!

Cars will never get to “level 5” autonomy, except in very very narrowly defined circumstances. With the money we’d need to get cars to safely transport people without human intervention, we might as well get mass transit instead and ditch the cars.

He’s right, except it won’t be your car. You’ll tell your phone, and a pod will come pick you up and take you there for a fee. I suspect many people will forgo car ownership when this becomes mainstream.

Yeah, yeah, yeah – I’m 63, and we were promised flying cars before I was even born… next comic.

We have been looking to replace our 2013 Equinox due to the start of major problems for which Chevy refuses to recall the Equinoxes.

We no longer have to deal with one problem in finding one – mom now can have free ambulette service when going to the doctor and we can meet her there – so do not need to fit 3 people plus wheelchair in the car.

We are shocked about the new cars (and not just the prices). No keys???? I had read in the local newspaper about cars being stolen as people leave their fobs in their cars. I thought it was a fob like we have for the Equinox- push button in and key pops out so I wondered how it was any different than leaving the key in the car. Now I know – the car doors can be opened and started from outside the car without a key if the fob is in it.

Car he is looking at (forget which one as it changes often) has buttons to push to switch the automatic transmission. I was saying how odd and then I remembered. My grandfather’s late 1950s car (maybe a Plymouth and I think a 1957 model) had buttons on the left side of the dash board (by door/left of the steering wheel) to switch the automatic transmission. Remembering this and what it looked like made me NOT say that we can’t get a car with same – too confusing.

Leading contender this month is Nissan Rogue – any complaints about it?