Life on wheels …

… Hitler, his driver and other stories - This captivating history of the motorcar is full of rich detail. We'll miss them when they're gone. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)

Towards the end the tone turns elegiac. Because the future is electric, and it is autonomous. Appleyard rightly loathes the idea that we will become "passive spectators" in our own journeys. Autonomous vehicles, for him, "represent a freedom-destroying victory over the driver's experience of serendipity, contingency, and faith and joy in their own competence". They also present serious legal and philosophical problems, which he summarises in a brilliantly offhand way: "Getting killed or maimed by a robot somehow feels a good deal more annoying than by a human."