The throttle control on an early 90s, or early 2000 FORD is also a lever and rod [or braided steel cable] attached to a couple springs...
Unless you had cruise control [remember when that was an _option_?]... then there's a servo or equivalent motor in-line with the cable and springs.
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Even with a digital system: there's no benefit. It's the same mechanical piece, it has to be, that's how combustion engines work: you open a throttle plate, the vacuum sucks in more air, the computer compensates w/ more fuel, compress that, spark it, you have more power.
You will always have a throttle plate and some sort of lever; and since you want it to fail closed you best have a return spring somewhere.
All you gain by adding a digital control system is [perhaps] clever software control and [certainly] additional complexity.
Is it worth it? Perhaps... there are some _very_ cool systems developed as a result of drive-by-wire. Lane following assist, parking assist, assisted hill starts, manual transmissions with automated clutches, collision avoidance, etc.[0]
I would definitely argue for more _transparency_ in this technology, but I don't know that I could argue that the technology itself is a bad thing.
Unless you had cruise control [remember when that was an _option_?]... then there's a servo or equivalent motor in-line with the cable and springs.
---
Even with a digital system: there's no benefit. It's the same mechanical piece, it has to be, that's how combustion engines work: you open a throttle plate, the vacuum sucks in more air, the computer compensates w/ more fuel, compress that, spark it, you have more power.
You will always have a throttle plate and some sort of lever; and since you want it to fail closed you best have a return spring somewhere.
All you gain by adding a digital control system is [perhaps] clever software control and [certainly] additional complexity.
Is it worth it? Perhaps... there are some _very_ cool systems developed as a result of drive-by-wire. Lane following assist, parking assist, assisted hill starts, manual transmissions with automated clutches, collision avoidance, etc.[0]
I would definitely argue for more _transparency_ in this technology, but I don't know that I could argue that the technology itself is a bad thing.
[0]: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ridS396W2BY "Volvo Trucks - Emergency braking at its best!"