Recently, I was given a lift by my friend Erik and we fell to talking about cars. He works with young people and commented on their interest in noisy, fast, flashy cars when they could neither drive nor afford any motor vehicle. But then he surprised me by speaking with some passion about his own car; how it fitted with his identity, with the sort of man he was, particularly his aesthetic values and taste. His car was not ostentatious or ‘making a statement’; it was a grey Ford Focus. What was important to him was the restrained choice, the newness of the vehicle, its tidiness and functionality and its continuity with his way of dressing and generally ‘being in the world’.

Erik may not be typical, but his car is for him a substantial and consistent material confirmation of his personal identity, common to many people and heavily promoted in consumer capitalism. As cars became key items of personal consumption over the last century, men, and then increasingly women, took pleasure in choosing, driving and being seen to own and drive, particular models of car. But perhaps this is about to change. Perhaps we are passing ‘peak car’, the point at which as many people as possible own their own car in the rich northern cultures. The arrival of the truly autonomous automobile, the ‘autonomobile’, one that can drive itself with as little direction as a chauffeur or taxi driver, will change how we move about.

The appeal of cars has always been their capacity to give their owners mobility. Being able to walk a few yards, get into one’s car and drive oneself to a chosen destination is very attractive. Journeys that would otherwise involve more time, effort and waiting about are greatly simplified by a car, and that is taken for granted by much of the population in the rich North American and European countries. As with many inventions and artefacts, why would we go back to the discomfort of trying to manage without them?

However, the idea, beloved of advertisers, of the open road winding across beautiful rolling countryside along which the driver can effortlessly steer their car, is a long way from most drivers’ experience of driving. As long ago as 1947, philosopher Max Horkheimer pointed out in his book Eclipse of Reason the paradoxical refashioning of freedom that came with the car: “There are speed limits, warnings to drive slowly, to stop, to stay within certain lanes… We must keep our eyes on the road and be ready at each instant to react with the right motion. Our spontaneity has been replaced by a frame of mind which compels us to discard every emotion or idea that might impair our alertness to the impersonal demands assailing us.” Since then, driving has become ever more ‘managed’ by lines, signs, lights and hatched boxes and the experience of most car commuters is of a nose-to-tail progression that frequently grinds to a halt, leading to frustration and missed appointments. Unlike the train or bus commuter, the car driver can choose alternative routes, control the heat and sounds in their environment. But driving as a ‘pleasure’ and an expression of freedom has become ever more constrained to improve safety and to maximise the ‘flow’ on motorways and urban routes. As a result, advertisers increasingly link the pleasure of the car to its material form; its look, its mechanical and electronic capacities, its comfort and the status accruing to its owner.

Economic cars

Sociologists used to talk about ‘Fordism’ to refer to the emergence of mass, industrialised production with automated assembly lines and machine tools making standardised parts. Factories such as Ford’s paid good wages and extended car ownership down the social scale, but distinction in ownership was at the expense of distinction in style. Ford famously offered his cars in any colour so long as it was black (because of the difficulty of rapidly curing paints of any other colour) and the models changed little because of the high cost of retooling the bespoke machines for manufacturing.

The second half of the 20th century saw the development of design and manufacturing techniques that produced a range of appealing and different cars. Marketing began to address the individual taste of buyers and the style and capacities of a car became linked to the desire to purchase it. Shape of bodywork and colour were especially important in the 1950s and 1960s, but the last quarter of the 20th century saw a turn to the more functional features of cars: power-assisted brakes and steering, automatic gears and cruise control, comfortable seating, ‘in-car entertainment’ systems and so on. The car was established as a consumer item, linked to personal identity and freedom from limits on mobility.

Throughout the 20th century the car maintained its core role in industrial production, with factories linked to the economic destinies of major cities in the US and Europe. Competition from Asian factories changed production techniques and reduced workforces as machine tools gave way to robots. Financialisation of the car industry decoupled the links between brands and countries, as corporations moved production to wherever there were tax incentives and a supply of cheap labour.

Capitalist development was tied to the car through low-rise suburbs, and the expectation of longer commutes to work. Borrowing money to buy cars became a significant feature of consumer culture and contributed to the ‘debt state’, in which ordinary living is sustained both by national debt and by personal debt. Borrowing from the future can work while interest rates are low and there is confidence in sustained income, but it is risky economics and puts consumers in the hands of the finance industry. A new generation of entrants into economic life is already faced with substantial debt from student loans and a blend of high rents and insecure employment. And they are showing signs of postponing learning to drive as the number of people with full licences drops in the UK. But for many people, owning a car has given way to leasing on a personal contract plan (PCP), with a manageable initial payment and the option to ‘upgrade’ after a few years, rather like the model for mobile phones. Although in 2014 there were just under 32 million cars on the UK’s roads, according to the Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders, numbers of new car registrations are in decline and there are fears of collapse in the second-hand market, leaving the car industry exposed.

Status objects

Some of us continue to desire the flashy red sports car with an attention-grabbing roar, but that is not how most of us choose to spend our money. The car as a means of expressing personal identity is less attractive than it was 50 years ago because they have become so ordinary, ubiquitous and similar; they are even less colourful (in 2014 54% of new cars were black, silver or grey). At one time, to have multiple enclosed headlamps or a reverse sloping rear window showed one was in touch with what was new, modern and ‘trendy’. Today, most cars are variations on the pebble shape with the highest status reserved for the bloated luxury ‘utility vehicle’: the powerful four-by-four, high-up car that protects its occupants in comfort and road-dominating style.

The 20th century saw the development of cars, roads and driving ability that was remarkable in accommodating the increasing volume of traffic and distances driven. But still, the car is a killer, particularly of pedestrians and cyclists who are not protected by a steel carapace, and the chemicals and particulates exuded by cars lead to death and disease through air pollution. Two high court judgments have castigated the failure of the UK government to develop a policy for dealing with air quality. Reluctant to constrain car use, its response has been to build more roads to bypass congested areas of cities, but eventually the ‘business interests’ in mobility will have to give way to citizens’ interests in health and life.

The personal contract plan model of financing encourages drivers to lease more expensive cars — the extra monthly cost seems easier to manage — and the prestigious German-made cars are more popular in the UK than vehicles from any other country. But this will change as the autonomobile becomes a simple functional device, hired rather than owned by users, and each will look more or less the same, just as London taxis do. Nobody will worry much what sort of car they get into or out of, except the rich. Hopefully the rest of us will worry more about the consequences of our use of cars, such as CO2 and air pollution from emissions (although air pollution by rubber tyres is important) and the consumption of the road space to the detriment of less space-demanding modes of transport, such as foot, cycle or bus.

The post-car world

But what will replace the car as we know it today? With four wheels, four seats facing forward, a steering wheel, a metal frame and body, and an internal combustion engine, the UK’s most popular car, the Ford Focus, has much in common with Ford’s Model T of a century ago. The energy source and engine is already changing with the phasing out, first of diesel, and then petrol, in favour of electricity. But more importantly, the driver is already being phased out, as servo systems reduce physical effort and sensors and electronics replace driver judgement. The self-driving ‘autonomobile’ is already on the roads, although it still looks like a car and requires a designated human driver. But the steering wheel will soon go and with it the need for forward-facing seating.

Autonomobiles will enable many more people to work on the move and will even be able to deliver the holidaymaker or business traveller to their destination while they sleep. This could amplify consumer culture’s mobility fetish, leading to many more journeys, many more road miles, more pollution and more congestion. Road haulage and public transport will no longer be constrained by expensive drivers needing breaks, with the effect of destroying millions of jobs. It remains unclear how autonomobiles will interact with pedestrians, cyclists and old-fashioned human-driven cars, but once those problems are solved, road deaths should reduce dramatically, so the post-car will not need a heavy protective steel shell.

Although users will decide where the autonomobile will take them, it, together with road systems, will decide how: by what route, at what speed and how to interact with other road users. Owning an autonomobile will mean it needs to be garaged, maintained and parking paid for. The rich — already used to chauffeurs — may continue to mark their distinction with more ostentatious versions of the post-car, but for most people, hiring one for a journey will be more appealing. Smartphone technology has already changed the notion of hailing a taxi (a loud whistle and waved arm look rather gauche nowadays) and will fit well with a vehicle that is built around information and communication systems.

Some will no doubt be persuaded to enter into PCP leases and car clubs may be attractive, but the link between ownership and driving that has sustained the car at the centre of consumer capitalism over the last 100 years will surely go, and with it the connection between personal identity and the car that my friend with the Focus expressed. But then it is only a matter of time before the autonomobile becomes a self-reproducing consumer in its own right, earning enough as a taxi to collect and pay for its own fuel, taxes and repairs, and then, to pay for its replacement.