5 unexpected consequences of autonomous vehicles
The technology industry is currently ploughing full steam towards automating that thing that most of us do to get about: driving.
As with most technologies in this increasingly fast paced technological revolution, it will no doubt disrupt traditional industries, likely logistics will be the first to benefit, replacing human drivers with automated ones and increasing speed, cost and efficiency in the process.
The ripple effect of this will be far reaching as automation becomes an essential part of logistics.
Our shopping habits will change
Automated logistics will mean much faster deliveries and greatly reduced costs. As the industry works out how to automate the "last mile", cutting out humans from the delivery chain, it will lead to more and more of us shopping online. As this becomes the norm, the traditional shop will certainly suffer, and they will have to find new ways to compete.
We are already seeing shop chains working together to offer the customer more services from a single location, whilst enabling them to pay the rents on their premises. Argos in Homebase, Esso with a Spar shop and a Costa, and Morrison's with Amazon collection points are all evidence of this.
I believe in the future we will see shops that are just for displaying products. Manufacturers will pay to have their good on display for customers to see and try on, you will order the products in store, and they will be shipped to your house by the time you arrive back home.
Some shops will ride through this storm, such as food outlets and clothes stores, but the shop will change to be more about customer experience than purchasing goods.
There will be no point in owning a car
Once commercial vehicles have been automated, personal transportation will be the next target, the automated taxi, once the technology matures, will surely rule our roads.
If course the car companies will try to convince us that the ultimate experience will be to own our own autonomous vehicle. But to my mind the numbers just don't add up.
Our cars spend 95% of their time parked, once we can summon a car on our smartphones and trust that it will arrive within minutes, it will be easier and more cost effective to just hire a car everytime you need one, and not bother owning one anymore.
Plus there will be no more road tax to pay, car insurance to hunt down, or maintenance bills, and the days of the designated driver will be long gone!
Our streets will be freed up
With our new found freedom from ownership, we won't be clogging our streets up with cars parked everywhere anymore. For those streets that aren't main through routes such as closes and cul de sacs, expect kids playing football in the street, and street parties on special occasions.
Who knows? We may even speak to our neighbours more!
The traditional hotel will suffer
The bread and butter of most hotels is the business customer. They have important meetings in the mornings at far flung locations, and this need places to stay. Most hotels these days also have business facilities such as meeting rooms, teleconferencing facilities, and refreshment services.
But with the ability to work whilst on the move now that the vehicle can drive itself, not only will productivity go up, but the mobile office will also become the mobile hotel. Business men and women will have their tea at home, say goodnight to their children, and then summon a sleeper car to take them overnight to their business meeting in the morning.
And there will be comfort and entertainment a plenty, for the right price of course.
Policing and medical care will have to adjust
One of the great sells of autonomous vehicles is that our roads will be made safer, it is estimated that around 90% of road incidents are, at least in part, caused by human error. So once this rate is drastically reduced, it will have a big effect on policing and medical care.
With the reduction in accident rate, and autonomous vehicles being law abiding citizens, the police will be able to drastically reduce their road policing, moving to a more central monitoring role, and not having to attend as many accidents and road blockages.
In turn our hospitals will have to deal a fraction of the incidents, allowing them to redeploy ambulances, helicopters and staff to other healthcare needs.
One unfortunate consequence for medicine is that there will be an even greater shortage of organ donors, since car accidents currently give a steady supply of healthy organs for transplant.
What ripple effects are you expecting? Let me know your thoughts in the comments, and if you like this post, please upvote this post and follow me.
and than ask you self the question: why did Martin Ford doubled the wages of his employees......
just think about it.
Nice post big vote from me!
Thanks smappy!
Who is Martin Ford, and why did this unknown party increase wages? I suspect you mean Henry Ford, and the reason he increased wages was so that he could sell more cars, as his employees would then be able to buy them.
Amirite?
the future is now my friends. from a consumer standpoint this type of automation will be wonderful on the other side of the token this is going to very rapidly cause a large amount of people to lose their employment. I hope there is some way to balance this new technology.
I think history has shown that disruptive technology creates jobs in the long run, but the speed of the change here may displace a lot of people in the short term.
Interesting take - they will certainly change a lot of things, not absolute mind you, I still think we are a long way away from no one owning a car, but certainly heading tward lower car ownership, less physical retail. Oh and I wouldn't be investing in any car insurance companies anytime soon.
It will definitely be a gradual process, but the building blocks are already in place and it is moving forward faster than you think!
Definitely some things to think about! With a reduction in human error I definitely think these cars will make our roads safer (as long as there aren't software bugs, or other factors like hackers). These cars could truly change our lives, as like you said, we have a lot more time. If we need to we can even sleep while our car drives itself!
The car will become the office for some people, because they can work whilst it drives.
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STOPThoughtful post, and quite interesting. I think you might be dramatically missing some points, however. Consider Digital Nomads. Estimates I have seen indicate that there will be as many as 1 Billion such independent travelers by 2035.
With autonomous vehicle technology, consider what benefits would inure to this demographic from having RVs. Long haul travels, satellite internet, and RV parks.
I don't see car ownership being extraordinarily reduced, even for non-nomadic people, as long as kids need a place to get laid, smokers can't use public transportation, and various cargoes cannot be transported via commercial lines.
Neither do I see cops being reduced, given the political landscape that seems to be emerging, not only in the USA and EU, but globally. Police states are on the rise, and new excuses to police autonomous transport are going to arise.
I expect there will be pushback, but cops are gonna surveill us, and it is a given that outfits like the NSA will be able to do so using our vehicles as the surveillance device - unless there is some move to preclude it, which I have seen no sign of from any vehicle manufacturers.
Onstar, GM's innovative surveillance product, has long been used by police to both surveill and compromise vehicles of interest. Just as your cell phone can now be used to track you, listen to you, and see what ever the camera is behind, even when the phone is ostensibly off, so will vehicles equipped with wifi, cameras, and mics.
There will be dramatic changes, but mostly 'meet the new boss, same as the old boss.' If we really want to reduce the impact of surveillance and police state forces to more intensively control us, we're going to have to institute radical changes in how this technology is developed.
Given our divided and conquered state at present, I don't see it happening.
I agree, there is a war going on for control of car data, and there will be plenty of outfits queuing up to access that.
@hexydec nice post !
I think that despite all the pros of the autonomous vehicles there are also some major drawbacks. First of all, lots of lorry drivers, taxi drivers etc. will lose their jobs, which may lead to unknown consequencies. Second, no system is absolutely secure - that means that autonomous vehicles can be hacked and used for terroristic purposes, for example. And the last, there is some joy in driving a car which will be gone with the autonomous vehicles (that makes me personally sad).
Well i do love new technologies but i don't see an immediate effect and wide spread of this autonom driving in the next 20 or 30 years not only because the investments needed to support this are enormous but also because many ppl including myself i don't feel and i don't see the necessity of leaving some bites act for my safety and reduce or eliminate my joy to drive a car.
Love it!