Perceptions of Automated Vehicles in the Performance Racing Community

• In Event: Autonomous Vehicles - I: Practices and Policies of Autonomous Driving

Abstract

Performance racing in the United States is a subculture of car enthusiasts that buys, modifies, or builds cars designed to be raced. It is a large and profitable industry, generating $287 billion in 2017 alone. It is a community that celebrates the freedom to tweak and drive their cars as they wish; it values choice, control, and individuality. It is unsurprising, therefore, that the advent of autonomous vehicles has increasingly become a topic of concern for the performance racing community. At the 2017 annual Performance Racing Industry (PRI) trade show town hall, members of the community shared concerns that autonomous vehicles would further erode practices of car tinkering and modification already under attack by proprietary designs and over-controlling auto manufacturers. To the PRI community, autonomous vehicles were a foregone conclusion, the inevitable future of cars, and one that represented a world where consumers were at the mercy and behest of the auto industry.

This project considers these concerns and others among subcultures of car modification and hacking, to ask: how do these communities view autonomous vehicles as a threat? How, if at all, is the community attempting to respond? By interviewing members of the community and analyzing articles in the trade press, I will reveal the values at play in how this community assess this perceived threat and negotiates its future in the face of automation.

Author

• MC Forelle, University of Southern California, Annenberg School for Communication & Journalism