无人驾驶汽车：我们在这段旅途中失去了什么？

The first car I loved was already old when it became ours. Its paint had faded unevenly, the passenger window needed both hands, and the engine turned cold mornings into negotiations. We gave it time, a little throttle and the sort of encouragement usually reserved for nervous animals. It smelled of warm vinyl, gasoline and the peppermint sweets my mother kept in the glovebox. The radio lost stations whenever we crossed the county line, so we sang through the static. No one would have called it advanced. On certain hills, no one would have called it reliable. Yet I remember that car with a tenderness I have never felt toward a flawless machine. …