Wow! What a week we have had so far for news and developments in the Autonome(1) World. I was going to wait until the weekend, but there is too much happening and I really want ITE to be aware and thinking about the implications of all this.
After the CES show last week and big announcements from
Lexus (Toyota) and Audi (two actually - a
Nevada 'infinity license plate' and
self-parking) I managed to produce my
latest presentation which I gave to the ITE Southern Alberta Section on Tuesday. I also included some costing calculations to show just how much an average user would benefit from autonome fleets capable of 'body-out' functionality. But as I pointed out to the audience - many members of the public would buy an autonome, or retro-fit one, and then rent it out using an ad-hoc car share company. They would then have their vehicle when they need it, but it would be making money the rest of the time - which would result in so much competition that transport prices will plummet. (Watch out transit! - but that's a subject for a future blog). Why pay $21/day on average to own a car when you use an autonome fleet for less than $8/day (as low as $2/day when ultra-lightweight autonomes are in use), or even better, you can purchase or retro-fit an autonome and earn money from it?..... I am guessing the average person would like to earn money rather than pay 19% of their income on transportation.
I have been half-joking by saying that this technology is moving so fast, that as soon as I update a presentation, then it is out of date. Well of course this is exactly what happened. That evening, after the ITE SAS presentation I read that
Nissan announced that they would have driverless cars in the showrooms by 2020 - and then
Mercedes who have categorically stated their intention to be first with the self-driving car. So we now have the 'superpowers' in Volvo (China), Google (US), Nissan (Japan) and Mercedes (Europe) battling it out to bring this technology to market. Just remember please, the paradigm shift, the 'game-changer', is when these things can run 'body out' - that's when our existing transportation models disrupt. Google appear to be leading the pack on that one - indicating 2017, but me and a few others think they are being deliberately conservative to give them, and us, more time to get prepared.
Then its the TRB annual meeting this week - and there were a number of interesting sessions discussing this fascinating subject. It was standing room only for
Session 511 'Connected and Driverless Vehicles: What Are the Safety, Liability, and Operational Impacts?'. Thomas J. Bamonte, the general counsel for the North Texas Tollway Authority,
had this to say:
"Metropolitan areas will start using this technology to distinguish themselves. If you want to be a forward-looking metropolitan region, you want to support this kind of technology because it puts you in the forefront of public consciousness as a forward-looking metropolitan area, as opposed to being stuck in the 20th century."
So, in summary, the week is not yet over and this technology is becoming more real and getting closer with every day that passes - as the automakers are very keen to tell us. We don't have much time - and Thomas Bamonte has given us a friendly challenge - which I will paraphrase in light of the Freakonomics challenge to us(2), as 'We are running out of time to prepare for this technology, so let's get to work and make it happen so that our communities benefit at the very earliest opportunity'.
Until the next blog - drive safe!
(1) I call self-driving/autonomous/driverless cars, carbots, robocars etc 'autonomes' as it is a single word and not an acronym and it is identifiable as a noun and it works in English and French - which being based in Canada is important.
(2) "Surprisingly few people, even within the transportation planning world, are talking about this pending revolution."
Freakonomics