On 5/5/2016 3:44 PM, Bruce  Johnson wrote:

 Instead of a large mass of cars all pretty much the same, we have this Seussian menagerie of vehicles rolling, hopping, walking along with some controlled by wheels and pedals, others by an array of levers like construction equipment and yet others with a veritable concert organ console in the drivers seat. Steam powered, gas powered, electric powered, etc.

That pretty well describes the actual experimental phase of the automobile in our society.  People came up with, and built, all sorts of designs before eventually coalescing around Ford's - and that was as much due to breakthroughs/advantages in other related technology (the process of manufacturing them) as any innate superiority of the design itself.

Considering the significant benefits of standardization, the most plausible way I can think of to keep such a varied situation past the introductory/early-adopter period is if there are several major players who all stubbornly insist on maintaining and promoting their own partially or wholly incompatible "standards".  This state of affairs can persist for as long as the market is unable to pick a decisive winner, possibly until the development of a next generation of the technology renders all of the previous moot.

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Kelly St. Clair
xxxxxx@efn.org

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