Welcome to Must Read, where we single out the best stories from around the automotive universe and beyond. Today we've got reports from Road & Track, MotorSport, and MotherBoard.
In praise of NASCAR’s Tony Stewart – MotorSport Magazine
If Stewart has any counterpart in Formula 1, only one name comes into the frame. From the very beginning of his career, Kimi Räikkönen went his own way – and this of course accounts for his enormous popularity. Yes, Kimi is a fantastic racing driver, but there are plenty of those. What confers on him cult status is that at a time when political correctness continues ever more to strangle society, it is immensely attractive to have in our midst a driver who remains immune to all that, who does his own thing, and isn’t greatly bothered what people think about it. Of course his monosyllabic responses can make him maddeningly difficult to interview – but he isn’t greatly bothered about that, either.
Elmore Leonard taught me how to hot-wire a car – Road & Track
Our old friend John Krewson with a fitting tribute to the author Elmore Leonard who fell victim to the same mortal reality that propelled many of his books.
Exactly what we owe to the artists who change our lives is a matter of some speculation; often it's not clear how they've influenced us at all. But when Elmore Leonard died yesterday, I knew what it was I owed him and what he'd done for me. When I was a sullen and confused teenager, before I could drive, Elmore Leonard taught me how to hot-wire a car at a time when I was just beginning to see how the world fit together.
By 2035, Nearly 100 Million Self-Driving Cars Will Be Sold Per Year, Report Says – MotherBoard
Yep, it's coming. But this soon?
The rise of autonomous cars might turn out to be more rapid than even the most devout Knight Rider fans were hoping. According to a new report from Navigant Research, in just over two decades, Google Cars and their ilk will account for 75 percent of all light vehicle sales worldwide. In total, Navigant expects 95.4 million autonomous cars to be sold every year by 2035.