The technology built into cars has evolved in incredible ways over the past decades. To this day, as we flirt with autonomous driving, vehicles are capable of practically any function with a simple button. From starting without the need for a key or activating the handbrake to lowering the window of the vehicle, opening the trunk. A series of actions for which we previously needed more time and greater skill.
And the future, as we have seen thanks to brands like Tesla or Uber, seems aimed at a world in which we stop being drivers to be just another passenger. However, to reach the current situation, cars have had to go through a process of evolution that makes cars from 70 years ago are distant cousins of those we see on the road today.
Would you know how to drive a vehicle of another generation?
They had no power steering, anti-lock system, or power windows. Neither a sensor that helps us park, an on-board GPS that helps us reach our destination by the fastest way, nor the endless pilots who help us discover what happens in our vehicle when something goes wrong. For the same reason, getting into a vehicle of these characteristics for a person who has just obtained a driving license can be more complicated than it seems.
Also for someone who took it out in the 60s and who, several decades later, has to get in a Tesla. For the same reason, the El Hormiguero team has carried out a test in which they face two generations of drivers with cars from opposite eras. While young people have had to get into an old car, veterans have had to do the same on a Tesla.
These are the trials they have had to face
Throughout this experiment, the two generations of drivers have to guess how to open the car door that they have tested. Also start the vehicle, face an obstacle test and, finally, park between two vehicles. Thanks to this experiment, the youngest have been able to see what life was like when there was still no power steering or sensors that help us park in a much faster and more efficient way.
Finally, the protagonists of this experiment had to go to the gas station to continue the march. While the first of them discovered at first that the car she was driving was electric, the second almost ended up pouring gasoline into the socket. In short, and despite the fact that the vehicle still has four wheels, its concept has changed considerably in the last decades.
–
