Yes, the "death of car culture" has been declared prematurely so many times that close observers might compare the American institution to a protagonist in a comic-book movie. It keeps "dying," only to reappear intact 30 minutes later.

But while car culture hasn't died, more and more forces are conspiring against its continued survival. Especially this week, with the introduction of Google's vision of the future of its "self-driving car."

Google's self-driving cars are now not just a technological add-on to a Prius, but an experimental mobile pod. It's an electric vehicle, reports The New York Times, with two seats, a navigation screen, yet-unrevealed computing equipment and smart self-driving software (long-developed through DARPA tests and Google magic), and, of course, sensors up the wazoo. It can also be summoned with a smartphone app.

But more importantly, it's got no steering wheel, no acceleration or brake pedal, or gearshift — just a start button and a red (panic) "stop" button. Long referred to as Google's "self-driving cars," the new Google-built prototype, of which there will be 100 in Google's experimental production run before the company hands off manufacturing to partnered car companies, should not be called a "car" at all.

Sure, it's a vehicle with four wheels, headlights, a windshield, and a place to sit.

But Google's new pods resemble a "car" about as much as the iPod resembles a record player.

If these pods are the future of transportation, as Uber thinks they will be — the company's CEO Travis Kalanick is already planning a future Uber 2.0, based on such vehicles with no drivers — car culture is on the way out.

Now, in any discussion about something as intangible as "car culture," we must define our terms to avoid confusion and fundamental disagreement over something I might not even be saying (not that it'll the stop those who only read headlines and head straight to the comments section to flame away).

To me — someone who went out of his way to get his learner's permit and driver's license as early as was legal; someone who, years before that, couldn't wait to go to church every Sunday because it meant, after services, being allowed to personally valet the family Chevy to the door (of course, after a few detours around the parking lot); someone who, despite learning and regularly performing intermediate maintenance, ran two Taurus's into the ground delivery driving through college — "car culture" isn't being a regular reader of Jalopnik, excellent though that site is. Neither does car culture mean watching Top Gear, lusting after supercar porn, and it doesn't necessarily mean actually owning a classic muscle car, a souped-up Prelude, or anything else only affordable for the well-off middle-aged or their teenaged progeny.

"Car culture" is more of an attitude. It's the everyday, hands-on, enthusiasm about your car — no matter how much of a beast or beater it is. It's seeing a problem with your car, figuring out what's wrong, going to the local parts store, and spending an hour or more on your back in the driveway, probably with a good friend and a beer, giving your car the attention it deserves. It's the pride of knowing, more or less, how your car works, and, barring a catastrophic problem, being able to keep it running. And it's driving — being a skilled driver, a safe driver, a confident driver ... that occasionally takes curves as fast as your machine can handle. It's proudly showing off your car, and showing off with your car, whether it happens to be a Mustang or a Malibu. It's basically everything every car commercial has ever depicted, but in a real, unpolished way.

From this "attitudinal" view of the term, not even the rise of hybrid or electric cars is a threat to car culture. Sure, DIY repairs might become more technical and expensive than with the old, purely-mechanical cars, but that's been a trend ever since electronically-controlled ABS and other on-board computer-enabled systems became standard. And we have YouTube instructional videos now (which help immensely), and who knows what handy car-fixing applications technology might bring in the future.

But — even putting the increasingly technically demanding repair, customization, and personal care of those electric cars aside — at least you can still drive the things.

Along with the boom in urbanization and use of public transportation, the drop in the rate of millennial car ownership (even the rate of millennials with driver's licenses), Obama's push to reduce greenhouse emissions, apps that make finding a ride for hire/carpooling easier, and the drop in the miles driven by the average American — all factors that led The New York Times to declare "The End of Car Culture" last year (for better or for worse) — Google's driverless pods could be the final straw for car culture as a commonly-shared attitude towards our how we get around. Pod culture will eventually assimilate into the mainstream ... resistance is futile.

To be fair, Google and their driverless car have a lot of obstacles to conquer before it's anything more than another fascinating Moonshot project: legal barriers (though four states have already legalized it, thanks to Google's influence), privacy issues, and any number of economic and logistical hurtles that face a product that could completely disrupt a huge, historic industry. But keep in mind, GM already thinks Google could become a "serious competitive threat."

Also, to be fair, the driverless car offers a lot of promise; really wonderful possibilities. More and more people (re: the elderly, disabled, and anyone under 16) would be able to "drive." Car-sharing, acceptance of electric cars, and efforts to raise fuel-efficiency could all benefit, enabling the U.S. to stop consuming more gasoline than many other industrialized countries, combined. And, even if not completely accident-proof (an inevitable and, doubtless, fascinating court case that will encompass traffic law, civil law, and coding standards), ubiquitous driverless cars could wipe out a huge percent of the primary cause of auto accidents (which claim over 30,000 lives per year and result in billions of dollars in losses): human error.

But Google — by making its first production prototype of a driverless car; something that can't be driven... something that barely involves human input, at all — immediately influcenced the course of technological development, aiming it directly against car culture: the everyday autonomy of owning, maintaining, and driving a car, yourself.

Car culture is not dead. As Jalopnik's Matt Hardigree responded to that New York Times' article last year, we're not currently facing "the 'End of Car Culture' ... it's the death of 'Commuting culture,' which, I'd argue, is the greatest threat to car culture." But Hardigree sees "car culture" more as an enthusiasm for sports cars (or even less common rides), than as the everyday attitude, the tradition of some people who just really like driving and understanding their cars, even if that car is a "relatively dull commuter vehicle," as Hardigree describes the most popular cars in the U.S. Sure, Hardigree's car-culture-as-esoteric-hobby will continue to live on, after my definition of car culture has died out. Hardigree's car collection and customization fanatics have always been the most focused, committed, and often financially-assured subset of a broader cultural group: those who simply cared about their cars.

But for any semblance of traditional car culture, their time on Earth as a relatively widespread, popular cultural force is sadly limited. No single force or company is killing it: we know if the bad guy "kills" Batman, he's not actually dead, he's just waiting to reemerge stronger than ever. But many cultural, industrial, and commercial forces are conspiring to simply make car culture obsolete and nonessential. In other words, Batman could still be around, lurking from rooftop to rooftop, but if there's no crime, he's got nothing to do, and might as well retire.

Perhaps then, the "inevitable retirement of car culture" is more accurate — it's almost ready to pack up and move out to the margins of the American mainstream, living out its sunset days in showrooms, racetracks, and the occasional small-town diner parking lot or driveway — where the increasingly rare species of the everyday car enthusiast might still meet up sometimes, to brag about their cars in the balmy dusk of Sunday night.

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