The future of the automobile industry

The concept of individually owned cars will soon be obsolete, the internal combustion engine will cease to be competitive, car dealerships will cease to exist, and, by 2030, 95% of US auto miles will be travelled by autonomous, on-demand electric vehicles.

These were some of the dramatic prognostications made in a 2017 report by San Francisco-based think tank RethinkX, called Rethinking Transportation 2020-2030: The Disruption of Transportation and the Collapse of the Internal-Combustion Vehicle and Oil Industries. These predictions proved to be unrealistic and more appropriate expectations are that the transition to self-driving cars will happen over a number of decades.

RethinkX believed that the accelerated adoption curve of autonomous cars will be driven largely by market forces. The report states that “self-driving electric car share plans” in which consumers “subscribe” to a self-driving service, much like they subscribe to a cellphone contract, will be cheaper and more convenient for many people than owning a vehicle. As a result, the authors believed industries like oil, motor vehicle manufacturing, insurance, and transportation will face a mass migration away from their traditional products and services. These predicted changes of business models from private ownership to transport-as-a-service has the potential to revolutionise the motor vehicle industry.

The authors’ conclusions regarding the timing of the motor vehicle industry overhaul were dependent on the belief that fully autonomous driving would be available by the early 2020s. Elon Musk, the South African-born CEO and product architect of electric vehicle manufacturer Tesla Motors, has stated that this functionality would soon be available in the company’s cars. Moody’s, on the other hand, stated in their self-driving car study for the insurance industry in 2017 that, while self-driving cars will likely force auto insurers to rethink their business models, widespread adoption of this technology is decades away, allowing insurers ample time to adapt.

RethinkX’s findings were based on the growth of data from partially self-driving cars that were being developed. “Companies are investing billions of dollars in making this happen. All you need is one operating system to work, and then you have Level 5 autonomy. And the US-centred view — if it doesn’t happen here, it doesn’t happen anywhere — is a little misguided. A lot of these technologies are global. The Chinese are working on self-driving, and Europe is working on self-driving. And the first one to get it is going to be the Android or iOS of Level 5 autonomy,” the authors said.

As it turns out, making the final leap to full autonomous driving remains out of reach both for engineers and safety regulators alike. Car.com reports that, despite all the attention such vehicles have drawn, consumers are not exactly clamouring for self-driving cars: The latest AAA annual survey on automated vehicles found that just 14% of American drivers would trust riding in a self-driving car.

Autonomous systems in cars are classified in levels, with Level 0 being no automation and Level 5 or “wheel optional”, meaning that primary driving functions are automated under all conditions. Most vehicle manufacturers are currently focusing on Level 2, which allows the vehicle to take over most steering, acceleration, and braking functions, but still requires the driver to remain fully attentive and able to take over at any time. Cars.com reports that adaptive cruise control and lane-centring steering are key amongst these features. The best designed systems function from highway speeds down to a full stop and can relieve you of much of the stresses of driving, both in congested commutes and in long hours on the highway.

Some manufacturers, like Tesla, are aiming for Level 4 or 5 fully autonomous cars to be on the road soon. Notwithstanding Musk’s optimism, industry experts believe that level 4 autonomy could arrive in select localities in the next few years, with many still predicting that it could still take decades to reach Level 5. The biggest obstacle remains that the development of the technology behind full autonomous driving still has some way to go.

Gear Patrol reports that while artificial intelligence has produced rapid breakthroughs in many fields, it has struggled to master driving as quickly as futurists were predicting five to ten years ago. Safe driving requires not just operating a vehicle’s controls but also understanding complex social interactions and predicting human behaviour – cracking those has proven tricky. On the hardware side, most manufacturers’ systems rely on high-speed cameras and sensors, which need to both improve and become more cost-effective to make mass adoption feasible.

The information contained in this article is of a general nature and intended for information purposes only.