Now, I Never Saw the Original Film ...

... nor do I have any particular desire to see this one, either, although I'd love it if it turned out that the reason there are no people in its universe is that they're actually sequels to Stephen King's Maximum Overdrive and that the cars had previously risen up and killed them all, perhaps revealing this development when, during the course of their zany misadventures, the cars run across an isolated group of human survivors holed up in a remote desert gas station and proceed to systematically slaughter them.

In a wacky, heartwarming way, of course.