Part I: Don’t Fasten Your Seatbelts, Your Car is Driverless
How autonomous cars will change our life
We are on the edge of a significant shift in our civilization; technology has changed the face of our planet and our life forever. This time, a new generation of an old technology is going to solve lots of our problems, and also, face us with new opportunities and challenges. I am talking about autonomous cars. They are closer than we think. It is not exaggerating if I say that they will have the same impact as smartphones and the Internet in our lives. I am going to share what I learned during my research, and also, my thoughts on them.
Why Cars Are Important
So, the problem is we are not talking about cars when we talk about cars. Yes, it is confusing; in the bigger picture, our houses, cities, jobs, hobbies, …all have been affected by Ford’s invention around a hundred years ago. He invented the assembly line, so cars eventually became an affordable product for the middle class.
Trending AI Articles:
1. Making a Simple Neural Network
Because of that, goods and passengers were transported faster, further, and cheaper than before. It let people commute longer distances to work; thus, suburbs expanded, and cities and roads were reformed for the new needs. New regulations were created to manage the traffic.
On the other hand, cars become the primary source of pollution in the cities. Cars kill more people each year than wars and murder combined, and society spends billions of dollars to cover the costs.
Did Ford think about all of these consequences? I doubt it. Now we face another tsunami of change in transportation, (ironically Ford has the lead this time too) and this time we have to think about the challenges and changes. We need to predict them and be ready for them. It is exciting and mind-blowing, I promise.
What Does Autonomous Cars Mean?
Let’s look at the definition of an autonomous car:
“A driverless car (sometimes called a self-driving car, an automated car or an autonomous vehicle) is a robotic vehicle that is designed to travel between destinations without a human operator. To qualify as fully autonomous, a vehicle must be able to navigate without human intervention to a predetermined destination over roads that have not been adapted for its use.” (TechTarget)
First of all, autonomous cars are robots in a familiar form. Second, not all autonomous cars are fully automated. Cars like Tesla with autopilot technology, are not fully automated because they need a human operator. In this article, I am trying to imagine the future with fully automated cars and see the consequences.
Before that, I would like to emphasize that autonomous cars are not necessarily electric. But, it is possible to say that the fuel engines will be replaced by electric engines soon, and we can imagine that all the autonomous cars will have electric engines.
Players In The Market
Today, many companies are working on autonomous cars. As you can see below, new and unfamiliar names are working in this field. Tech companies, which had never produced any cars, have now become game changers. Companies like Waymo (A Google Alphabet company) and Apple are developing their cars directly, and companies, such as Intel and NVIDIA, collaborate with other companies to advance their technology.
Although the traditional car producers still have the lead, it is likely that an ambitious Asian start-up like NIO may take the lead from them, mainly because they face fewer regulations to put their cars in the street, compared with their American and European rivals.
Ownership
Take a look at this new concept from Smart; more and more companies look at autonomous cars as replacements for taxis. Therefore, their partnership with Lyft and Uber is not surprising. After the successful collaboration in Pittsburgh, Volvo agreed to provide 24,000 self-driving cars for Uber. These two companies are going to invest $300 million in this project. On the other hand, Lyft announced a partnership with Ford on self-driving cars.
This is not a surprise, but if I can request a car whenever I want and whenever I need, do I need to buy a car for myself? Take into consideration that I can select among different types of vehicles. A self-driving taxi means fewer expenses, more efficiently and, if it is electric, it means less maintenance. In this case, it would be much cheaper to take a cab than to use a personal car. Also, passengers can use their time to do something else. This fact shifts the car manufacturing companies from selling cars to selling rides.
We will see more membership plans and premium plans. It is unappealing, but it is possible that some companies might provide freemium programs in which you could get a free ride if you watch a commercial in the car; thus, entering into the entertainment industry.
We need fewer cars on the streets. There are different predictions from 1/10 to 1/30 of the current number.
Cars today are only in use 4% of the day, which is less than an hour a day. An autonomous electric vehicle could be operated for as many as 20 hours a day or 21 times as much as the average car today. (Thomas Frey)
This means that an autonomous vehicle would have a lower life expectancy than current cars. We cannot be sure about the exact life expectancy yet. However, fewer cars in the street does not necessarily mean that car manufacturers will produce fewer cars and cut jobs and lose the market.
Sooner or later, we will have to make hard decisions. Should we ban humans from driving at all or at least ban them from driving in some places or dedicate special lanes to driverless cars? I had an interesting talk with Donald Norman at the IDSA Conference 2015; he believed that we can put driverless cars in the street right away, but not next to human drivers. It will make for a lot of complications. This talk happened a few years ago, but I still think that we are so far from having an autonomous car which can drive in different countries with different driving habits. I am going to explain it more in the next part, but if we put these robots next to human drivers, we could not use all of their features. For instance, autonomous cars can drive so much closer together than humans.
Banning or limiting ourselves from driving is unlikely to stop people from driving. I won’t because in spite of traffic, I still enjoy driving. This creates a new demand for a niche market, a market for people who look at driving as an enjoyable experience. A concept like Bugimen by RCA graduate, Ehsan Moghaddampour, is a good answer to this demand. Thanks to low-volume production technics, we will be seeing more customized cars for pleasure.
Insurance and Health Care
So, we do not have a car; therefore, we do not need to buy insurance. Car insurance is a cash machine for the insurance industry as it is mandatory by law in the most countries.
According to KPMG, accidents will decline by 80% in 2040 because of safer cars and autonomous transportation. The National Highway Traffic Administration found that crash rates for Tesla vehicles have plummeted by 40% since Autopilot was first installed in 2015. Remember that Tesla is not an entirely autonomous car.
“Volvo’s vision is that, by 2020, no one should be killed or injured in a new Volvo car,” said the company’s president.
Fewer car ownerships and lesser accidents reduce the need for car insurance. Forecasts show that auto insurance companies will lose over $150 Billion per year.
This is not all bad news the for insurance business; fewer accidents also mean fewer injuries and death. So, insurance companies save a considerable amount of money on health plans.
But, does it hurt health care? Will health care lose money? Futurist Thomas Frey believes that the healthcare industry would lose more than $500 billion per year. But, I think this number is misleading us. Healthcare won’t hurt from autonomous cars. First of all, everybody agrees that healthcare, especially in the US, suffers from lack of investment. So instead of ER, healthcare companies can invest more on critical and vital issues and improve the quality of their services. Autonomous cars can also bring patients, medicine or organs from far distances, to the hospitals and reduce disparities and improve public health. Additionally, a reduction in car accident casualties will increase the life expectancy of the people, in general, which means that there will be more clients in health care.
Part II of the series is coming soon; I will cover autonomous cars impact on urban life, car design, transportation and social life. I do not sure know, but if it would be long I will divide it into more parts, let’s see.
Picture References:
Picture 1: https://paleofuture.gizmodo.com/driverless-car-of-the-future-1957-512626169
Picture 2: http://www.businessinsider.com/driverless-cars-could-negatively-affect-insurance-industry-2017-2
Picture 4: https://www.yankodesign.com/2007/06/25/zomg-its-a-mutant-platypus/
