The automotive industry has almost defined us as a nation for nearly the last 100 years. Yet recently the automotive industry has taken quite a hit thanks to both the economy and a push towards a greener future. It's become apparent that something has to give in the near future for both those things to co-exist. I think they can, though of course it's going to be a bumpy ride getting there! I've decided to map out what I believe is the best route, and the most likely that will give us a greener future while at the same time providing a stable economy with a mobile community.
With the rising cost of gasoline and dwindling natural resources, it's obvious that hybrid vehicles will soon be the norm, and eventually they will transform (most likely) into the all-electric vehicle. This transformation is already underway, and isn't likely to reverse itself at this point. I think though that there is another technology that will be even more instrumental in transforming the automotive industry, and the automotive culture in this country into something entirely new that will have a lasting impact on our nation, the driverless car.
The autonomous, driverless car is something that has fascinated us for decades, yet has always seemed more science fiction than science fact. In the last couple of years though, that has changed dramatically. News broke less than two years ago about the google driverless car experiment, which to date has accumulated more than 300,000 miles of street driving! It became an immediate Internet sensation and has spurred progress by other companies as well. There are now predictions that there will be driverless cars on our roads within the next 5 years. Several states have even already started passing laws under which driverless cars will be allowed to operate. This though is where the hype starts to veer off from reality. The present consensus seems to be that soon, everyone will own a self-driving car and we'll all be chauffeured around. I'm highly suspicious of that actually happening. Look at how much a top of the line sedan today costs, you're talking about a price tag anywhere between $35,000 and $45,000, and that's for a car with today's technology. Can you imagine how much it's going to cost to own a self-driving car?
Sure, one of these days soon there will be self-driving cars on the roads with us, but it's going to be the rich and well-to-do who own them. The average Joe on the streets isn't going to be able to buy one of these vehicles, and I doubt the day will come when the price comes down enough for him or her to afford one. I do think that we'll all be shuttled around in these marvels of technology though, it's just that our culture is going to have to have a transformation of it's own for that to happen. I believe that the days are numbered for the country that promised a car in every garage. The future of the self-driving car, except for the wealthy few, will be in crowd-sourcing.
Yes, crowd-sourcing, another new technology that is already transforming our culture,thanks to sites like kick-starter that allow anyone to "buy into" a new start-up, whether that's a new invention, a video game or an Indie movie project. I believe the true future of the automotive industry in this country is through a similar crowd-sourcing scheme. It's my thought that one day soon the automotive manufacturers will build out fleets of self-driving cars. We, as consumers will no longer buy cars and own them, we won't even lease them. What we'll do is become members of a fleet. Let's use Ford as an example. I won't own a car anymore, nor will I have to pay for car insurance. I'll sign on with Ford as a, "fleet customer". Ford will offer a tiered service. You'll pay X amount of money per month for X number of miles. You'll have an app on your smartphone that you'll use when you want to make a trip, say to the mall. You program into it that you want to be picked up at your home at 2pm and be taken to the mall. At 2pm your phone alerts you that your ride has arrived. You'll have maybe 5 minutes to get to the car or forfeit it. You hop in the car and it takes you to your destination where you get out and it takes off to ferry someone else in the same fleet as you somewhere else.
This scenario solves several problems. You no longer have to have the expense of owning a car, large payments, insurance, maintenance. The fleet owner will take care of the maintenance, they'll maintain the insurance on the vehicle, and you only have to pay a monthly service fee that will only have to cover you for the number of miles that you would typically drive in a month. Because vehicles will basically be "time-shared" by everyone, there will be fewer vehicles on the road, leading to smaller carbon footprints. There'll be fewer accidents since you'll be taking out the element of "driver error", which is the largest cause of automobile accidents.
The hardest part about making this change will be baby-boomers! Baby-boomers have grown up with the American car culture ingrained in them. It's their belief that their car defines who they are, and they are the group most likely to resist giving up the idea of car ownership, as well as control of the wheel to a computer. Those that will make it possible for this to happen on the other hand have already been born. Those in their twenties who have grown up with much of the technology that we have today will find it much easier to transition to a society in which vehicle ownership is a thing of the past. Yes, we will have self-driving cars very soon, much sooner that many people believe, but it's going to have to give birth to a new society in which we redefine what it means to travel, and how we do it, and like any birth, it will most likely be messy and very tiring!
