I guess we should start with what I believe is an obvious question. If pretty much every car can drive itself, will we finally get over the need to ‘own’ our own car? The way I imagine it, once more than a few Joneses are riding autonomous vehicles to school, work, or shopping, those same Joneses are going to start wondering if they even need to keep a car parked in their driveway or garage, especially if a car-for-hire is an app tap away. According to Tesla, that was one of the original goals for their cars anyway. Elon Musk envisioned a day when Tesla owners would free their cars up for hiring by other people when their owners didn’t need them for a while. So imagine you’ve been driven to your work and now your car would just sit in the parking lot for the next 8 hours. Wouldn’t you consider earning extra money by letting your car get others around while you work? Or sleep?
So I think what we would start to see, is people owning these cars and letting them be hired by others when the owner doesn’t need them. This would, along with any other companies that offer fleets of autonomous cars for hire, satisfy the needs of a lot of people to get around. It would require a bit of a culture shift though, because right now, we don’t even think about whether our car is ready to go, it’s just sitting there waiting for us. If we choose to let our cars shuttle other people around, that makes it a bit harder to just go somewhere on the spur of the moment. You might have to wait a couple of moments. It will make a lot more sense to just give up the idea of ownership period and hire as needed.
If you really sit back and think about it, if cars are available to hire any time, anywhere, what is the point of a taxi? None. OK then, what is the point of a bus? Same answer. The only thing I could see the bus offering as an advantage is price point. But most people would probably opt to get driven straight from where they are to their destination quickly and directly, even if it costs more, rather than take a bus with a longer trip and a meandering route. That's assuming they only needed one bus and nothing else. So it is possible that bus networks would eventually falter and disappear. Trains on the other hand, might have the advantage of speed, especially between towns and cities.
But with all of these autonomous vehicles, we may have created a new problem. If more people start hiring cars to take them places and stop using the much more efficient bus, this could put more vehicles on the road. Rush hour could become a bigger nightmare. We might need to enforce some level of efficiency by equipping autonomous vehicles with AI and make them perform multiple rides for multiple customers at the same time that are going in the same general direction. I think people might be willing to wait an extra few minutes for a vehicle that already has a couple more rides established and share the ride. This would essentially become the hybrid of the personal car and the bus. Private rides could be offered to those willing to pay extra for it. Although there would be more vehicles on the road under this new paradigm, it might help that autonomous cars could reduce the space between them due to their intelligent and quick reacting nature. Smart routing could also send vehicles down lesser used streets to ease congestion.
Congestion could also be managed somewhat by making subtle changes to work schedules. The worst case scenario would be when everyone starts work at 8:00 am. Flex hours could spread the rush over several hours. If workers were encouraged to be at work during core hours for collaboration, workers arriving and leaving for home across a windows of several hours would make roads much more bearable. Heck, why wait? This is a change that can be implemented now.
Once there is a tipping point of people no longer keeping a car at their home, there will probably be an avalanche of others willing to do the same. You know how it goes, people tend to follow what the majority are doing. Imagine the freedom of not having to take your kids to hockey practise. Let the car do it. You wouldn’t have to worry about drinking and driving anymore. Just try not to get sick in the car on the way home from some merriment, especially if the car is not yours.
The next question I have, is what will all those cars be doing when they’re not driving people around? During rush hour they should be busy enough, but what happens after most people are home and not likely to go out for the rest of the day? These cars have to go somewhere. Vehicles will also need somewhere to go to get recharged. We’ll either have parking lots or multi-level parkades (parking garages for Americans) or both re-purposed to handle this. We probably have enough space already, as there are a lot of empty lots and parkades overnight. Autonomous vehicles would know when it’s time to get a recharge and cars that don’t have a new trip waiting for them would find somewhere to get it. If we reduced the number of on-street curbside parking spots, this could make it possible for much wider sidewalks and even more and safer bike lanes. As an added bonus, I guarantee an autonomous car won’t complain about bike lanes.
What would the experience of being driven be like? For one thing, there would be no more road rage, because these cars will be driven in the most efficient and safest way possible by leading edge, linked intelligence. You would be able to sit back, relax and do whatever you would like to be doing while waiting to arrive at your destination. Watch the world go by, or watch TV or browse the internet. Listen to the radio or a podcast or stream some music. I wonder if you could you ask the car to go via the scenic route? If you’re just sitting back, maybe the scenic route would be enjoyable. I know that one thing I would be looking forward to, at least once, is letting a car drive me all the way to San Diego, while I get to finally sit back and fully enjoy the scenery for a change. The car would be able to drive all the way without stopping, except for meals, bathroom breaks and recharges. It’s currently only a 24 hour total drive. I like that option. Leave at 8 in the morning one day and be there at 11 the next morning, totally refreshed (allowing time for recharges and stops for meals). That’s assuming we’d still need to follow the speed limit. More on that later.
On the drive to work, would I still want to stop somewhere on the way to grab a coffee? Imagine thousands of autonomous cars queuing in coffee drive-thrus? Remember the old drive-ins of the 1950s and 1960s? They sprung up to deal with the explosion of the North American car culture. You drove up, parked, a server came to the car to take your order and brought it to your car once it was ready, on a tray that clipped right onto your window. I foresee roving coffee vehicles taking your order via your phone, then driving up beside you to hand it over on the freeway. With AI doing the driving, why not? After thinking about this some more, I realized that if coffee retailers were smart, they would sponsor cars for hire and equip them with coffee for their riders. And why stop there really? For my Canadian friends, imagine a Tim Hortons minivan for hire to take you to work, along with a few other people going the same way. In the minivan are dispensers of coffee, tea, donuts, etc. I would seriously take that to work some days. They’d just have to bump up the cost per minute a few cents and boom. Coffee and breakfast paid for.
Let’s take this into overdrive. There are a lot of other vehicles on the road delivering stuff to our houses, especially if we’re buying stuff online. Plus we’re always stopping off at the store to pick up a few things on the way home. I see no reason why the following scenario couldn’t happen. I ordered a couple things on Amazon this morning and it says I can either get them delivered to my house, or I could choose to let an Amazon car for hire take me home from work and I’ll get a discount on my order (for saving them the cost of delivering the goods. When the car arrives, my Amazon order is waiting for me in the car. If they partner with any grocery stores, those few things that I would have stopped to get could also be waiting in the car. Maybe a future perk for being a Amazon Prime member is that every time you order something from Amazon, your package will await you in the car and you also get the ride home for free.
With the proliferation of autonomous vehicles, would it be possible to eventually do away with speed limits as we know them today? I mean, let’s face it, speed limits only exist because most humans don’t know or pay heed to their limits. Nor are we generally great drivers. In Germany, where the autobahns have no speed limit, this is only possible because most cars are in good repair, their drivers are more courteous (and I suggest - better trained), and they know to stay to the right unless they’re passing. Incidentally, speed limits come back even on the autobahn when road conditions deteriorate. Autonomous cars should know when it would be alright to go faster and when not to. They would also drive according to the traffic. But a bunch of cars that could potentially talk to each other about what they’re doing should even make it possible to go faster when roads are congested, like a really fast car train. This new reality might even make it possible for traffic lights and other signs to disappear, since cars will know when it’s safe to proceed based on not just what’s going on around them but in conversation with other cars on the road. They would even know when congestion is occurring and route around it if practical. Could I get that drive to San Diego in 20 hours? That would be sweet.
It’s fun to imagine what the ride of the future will be like. I for one, am looking forward to it.
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