Though the title's similar, this is no Design of Everyday Things. This book's very strongly focussed on design ideas for automobile automation, smart cruise control and the like, which gets a little tedious. Surprisingly, Norman also barely explores transportation possibilities beyond the car, and there's no discussion at all of sustainability, how cities and transportation habits are changing, or really any context at all. I guess Norman sees a one-man, one-exhaust pipe future for us.
In other ways, the book feels very much like the product of the last generation of attitudes about technology: there's basically no discussion of the web, or really anything about products that might have both online and physical manifestations. There's certainly some interesting stuff about how people adapt to increasing automation and lack of control in their cars or homes, but no essential insights nor much about the implications of generalized ambient computing and automation, something Adam Greenfield deals with very thoughtfully in Everyware.