John Gallagher

Detroit Free Press

The irrepressible Bob Lutz, long the most entertaining voice in the automotive industry, delivered another vintage performance the other evening.

Keynoting the annual awards dinner of the Michigan Venture Capital Association, Lutz, the veteran automotive executive, regaled his audience of investors and entrepreneurs with his vision of the autonomous vehicle world just over the horizon.

His world of fully driver-less vehicles is just 15 to 25 years away, Lutz said, depending on how quickly governments are willing to invest in the road technology needed for a fully automated, or so-called Stage 4 system to work.

Then he hit his stride describing that world where “cars” are replaced by “modules.”

► Related: Lutz bashes Tesla, shares rise anyway

“Stage 4 modules will be standardized,” he said. “They’ll look like telephone booths laid down. They won’t be streamlined because they’ll be electronically linked in a seamless train on the freeway moving at say 200 m.p.h., 250 m.p.h., pick your speed. And they’ll be powered by inductive electrical rails in the freeway.

“Your module will be called to your house and you can order a long or a short one, basic equipment or luxuriously equipped with all kinds of interconnected activity, the nicest furniture and bars, but there will be no controls in this thing. It will probably all be voice-controlled.

“This module will then take you to the freeway and your credit card or whatever we have at that time will be scanned as you enter the freeway and then your module will then go through progressive acceleration lanes until it hits the freeways speed. And the train will temporarily open and it will accept your module and you can just relax.

“And as you get close to your freeway exit, your module will separate from the flow and it’ll go through a series of a huge asphalt or concrete deceleration areas, from 200 m.p.h. down to normal speed. Then the module will take you to your ultimate destination. And the module then goes away to a central point and it’ll be recharged waiting for the next customer.”

In this Lutz world, a cottage industry of low-volume automakers will flourish selling high-end human-driven vehicles to wealthy folks to enjoy on private tracks, much as horse tracks and riding stables still cater to horse enthusiasts a century after the motor vehicle displaced horses on roads.

But don’t expect mass-market futuristic modules to be sold based on brand identity, Lutz said.

“I’m afraid the automobile industry faces a very difficult future," he said. "Right now, the profitability is driven by brand differentiation. And there is no earthly reason in the world for anyone to spend $10,000 or $15,000 more for a BMW, Audi or Mercedes-Benz than you spend on a Chevrolet or a Buick or Dodge or Ford because they all do exactly the same thing with the same technology, the same suppliers, the same ride and handling, the same steering, the same fuel economy, but the differentiator is the brand. When was the last time you cared who made the subway car you rode in?”

A few other observations:

• Car designers in the future, he said, will be reduced to interior decorators, since the basic module will be standardized.

• Trains, aircraft, and autonomous motor vehicles will all merge into one giant integrated system.

• Asked whether traditional manufacturers or distrupters like Tesla will rule the market, a skeptical Lutz shot back, “It sure as hell won’t be Tesla because they’re going to run out of money in about 18 months.”

• And perhaps the greatest benefit from the autonomous world he describes will be safety.

“People say it’s going to be a field day for the trial lawyers because these things will crash,” Lutz said. “I will absolutely guarantee that electronic technology in autonomous vehicles is going to reduce serious and fatal accidents in the United States by at least 90%." And that accident rate will drop even further, he added, “once we get rid of human-driven cars that mess up the autonomous environment” because safety regulators will ban such cars from the roads.

I probably disagree with Lutz on many, perhaps most, of his predictions. I don’t see governments at any level paying for the kind of infrastructure he envisions, and certainly I don’t expect to see the whole system in place in as little as 15 years.

And I’m not sure that brand differentiation in something as central to middle-class lifestyles as cars will fade away as fast as Lutz foresees.

But one thing all of us can agree upon. Even at 84, Bob Lutz remains the most engaging voice in the auto industry.

Contact John Gallagher: 313-222-5173 or gallagher@freepress.com. Follow him on Twitter @jgallagherfreep.