PDK and the DMV.(NEWS)

Byline: Steve Thompson

* What if the state's department of motor vehicles were a place where you could get a motor vehicle, rather than a place where the state got you?

This thought came to me as I was using Porsche's superb seven-speed PDK (Porsche Doppelkupplung) tranny in a new Carrera 2 to keep the 3.8-liter engine on the (Vario) cam in the marvelous twisties not far from my home. With an MSRP of almost $107,000, the Porsche is a machine not destined for many middle-class garages anytime soon. This was also true before the practice of using your house as a credit card came to a screeching halt last year.

I had just watched the 1984 film remake of George Orwell's book 1984. Maybe that's why the current administration's "investment of public money in the heretofore mostly private business of making and selling vehicles triggered a chain of thought that ended with the notion of getting cars at the DMV. Or maybe it was because I'd read the most recent newsletters of the various intelligent-transportation folks, who are still striving to figure out how to solve the problems of accidents, traffic congestion and pollution with systems that use computers, satellites and clever engineering. It seems most of the technical difficulties have been or soon will be solved, which leaves the knotty social and legal questions: Will drivers accept computerized networks driving their cars? And what happens whennot ifthe networked stuff fails and crashes happen, triggering mayhem?

Both driver acceptance and keeping ambulance-chasing lawyers at bay demand a level of reliability in the fully realized networked-cars vision. And reliability demands not just super-robust and redundant systems but something private owners are unlikely to provide: frequent high-quality (expensive) maintenance of the vehicles. Most car buyers seem to have a tough time reading owner's manuals, let alone knowing and ...