If cars developed at the same pace as computers, they’d be this fast

As the gap between automobiles and computers continues to draw closer, the notion of comparing what was once considered two very distinct technologies no longer seems as absurd as it might have 30 years ago. Self-driving cars practically are computers. Amused by the radical shifts that the two technologies have undergone within the last 30 years, Jalopnik’s Jason Torchinsky compares the side-by-side development of the two, as well as how things could be if each developed at the same rate. Check out the infograph below.

He paired a computer and a car from 1982 (the Apple II Plus and a base-level-cylinder Ford Mustang) and a computer and a car from 2017 (Apple’s current base-level desktop computer, the 21.5-in. iMac, and a four-cylinder base Mustang, the Mustang Ecoboost).

Torchinsky measured random-access memory (RAM) storage memory capacity, CPU speed, and price on the computer; he measured horsepower, fuel economy in miles per gallon, 0-to-60 mph time in seconds, and price on the car. Though he acknowledges that the metrics are not a perfect comparison, they pair up well. CPU speed and 0-to-60 seconds both measure speed; RAM and MPG measure efficiency; storage capacity pairs with horsepower because, as he says, knowledge is power; and, of course, price (which is actually comparable).

Side by side, a computer from 1982 looks very different from a 2017 computer. It has 166,666 times the memory, is 1,600 times faster, has 7,508,684 times more storage, and is 3.9 times less expensive.

By comparison, a car from 2017 gets .9 times fewer miles per gallon, is 2.9 times faster, has 3.5 times more horsepower, and is 1.5 times more expensive than the equivalent purchase in 1982.

It turns out that the computers have developed very rapidly. If cars had developed at the same pace as computers, they would have 66,764,192 horsepower, go from 0 to 60 in .0034 seconds, get 3,666,652 miles per gallon, and cost only $4,471.

If, however, computers developed at the pace of cars, a 2017 iMac would have 43.2 K of RAM, would run at 2.9 MHz, would store 490K of data, and cost a whopping $6,529. 

Torchinsky recognizes that the comparison is a bit absurd, but it nonetheless presents an interesting idea.

Source: Jalopnik