Fleets of Automated Vehicles in 2020?
During Carl Eschenback’s talk last Friday, he discussed the major tech trends of the 20th century. In the 1960s it was semiconductors, 1970s systems, and moving forward to the 2010s the mobile boom. The question on his and everyone’s minds is: What’s the next tech trend? My hypothesis is what Lyft’s co-founder, John Zimmer, calls the “The Third Transportation Revolution.”
In Mr. Zimmer’s 2016 Medium post titled by the same name, he describes his view on the future of the transportation industry [1]. He says that the country was originally built with cars in mind. Highways, roads, bridges, etc – all built due to our vehicle usage. But in 2016, only 4% of the time a vehicle is actually in use, and the other 96% of the time it is parked [1]. Our vehicle usage is changing, and we should re-innovate our world to reflect that. He challenges the reader to think of a world built for people, and not for cars. And this world built for people is called “The Third Transportation Revolution.”
“The Third Transportation Revolution” will come to life in 3 key ways according to Mr. Zimmer:
“1) Autonomous vehicle fleets will quickly become widespread and will account for the majority of Lyft rides within 5 years.
2) By 2025, private car ownership will all-but end in major U.S. cities.
3) As a result, cities’ physical environment will change more than we’ve ever experienced in our lifetimes.” [1]
There’s no doubt in Mr. Zimmer’s mind that automated cars will become a reality. Firstly, he claims that fleets of autonomous vehicles will be crucial to the success of the “Third Transportation Revolution.” Secondly, Zimmer cites this surprising statistic: “In 1983, 92% of 20 to 24-year-olds had driver’s licenses. In 2014 it was just 77%. In 1983, 46% of 16-year-olds had licenses. Today it’s just 24%. All told, a millennial today is 30% less likely to buy a car than someone from the previous generation.” [1] We are moving towards a future with fewer and fewer cars in it, and we should embrace it. Lastly, due to the rise of autonomous vehicles, the physical environment we live in will change, and hence our lives will dramatically change with it. For example, we will need fewer parking structures, and we can use narrower roads. Cities can be built for people and communities, not for roadways. Zimmer summarizes by saying, “Ridesharing is just the first phase of the movement to end car ownership and reclaim our cities.” I truly can’t wait to see how Lyft will revolutionize the transportation industry, and in consequence our world.
In addition to Lyft, dozens of companies in the Silicon Valley are investing in this technology. Older, more established, companies such as Ford, General Motors, and Volkswagen are developing AI systems for automated vehicles. [2] Newcomers, such as Tesla, Waymo, and Uber are also disrupting and innovating the field of autonomous vehicles [2].
Automated vehicles is an exciting field, and I truly hope it will be the next trend we see in 2020!
Also below is an interview by the Lyft president, John Zimmer, on the future of autonomous vehicles and Lyft vs. Uber! Enjoy!
[1] https://medium.com/@johnzimmer/the-third-transportation-revolution-27860f05fa91
[2] http://theconversation.com/silicon-valley-is-winning-the-race-to-build-the-first-driverless-cars-91949
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10 comments on “Fleets of Automated Vehicles in 2020?”
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Hi Elauren,
Great post on the future of transportation.
I do agree with Zimmer on some of the analysis of the trends of car ownership data that tend to let us conclude “that we are moving towards a future with fewer and fewer cars in it”. This may be true to some extend for bigger metropolitan cities such as NY City, Chicago, SanFrancisco, etc… But at a larger scale in the USA and for most of the rest of the world, I think, the future of transportation is much different. In china for example, big cities such as Beijing and Shanghai, are seeing a big boom in car ownership. People are going away from motorcycles and public transportation to personal car ownership: [1]http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/business/motoring/2016-01/26/content_23253925.htm
I think it will be a long way before a larger adoption of automated vehicles, and even if the US might get there earlier, the win of automated fleet will broadly depend on a worldwide adoption, which is far to see it happen in the coming decade, in my opinion.
Hi, Patrice! Great insight that Zimmer’s view on transportation is much more US focused, and there needs to be more thought and consideration for implementing the automated fleet outside the US. Thanks!
This topic is fascinating and in many ways daunting. In an article from The Verge, Zimmer discusses the freedom and versatility that autonomous vehicles can give its customers. For instance, “there’s the private version if you want to do work on your ride, there’s the sleeper car if you want to take a nap, [and] there’s the entertainment car if your friends and family want to watch movies” [1].
The benefits of such an autonomous transportation system are endless. Users will no longer have to worry about parking, car servicing, and cleaning. For Lyft specifically, Zimmer says it will first run as a “hybrid network” until steering wheels, pedals, and drivers are eliminated. The Lyft CEO’s futuristic ideas were said only a few days after Uber started to test self-driving cars in Pittsburgh. According to Zimmer, Lyft itself has launched Express Drive, a car rental program, in six cities.
Yet how realistic is Zimmer’s vision that driverless cars will be entirely ubiquitous in 2021? A New York Times Article calls it 20 percent; “the day, if it ever arrives, that one out of five vehicles you encounter will be driving itself” [2]. And what about data, ownership, security, and legal concerns? It seems unlikely that such hurdles will be resolved in the next few years. Insurance will be a key issue as well as the law surrounding data protection. Perhaps the most prevalent issue that will present itself is cybersecurity and safety. The regulatory systems we have in place today will have to ultimately adapt to the cybersecurity challenges presented by driverless cars, and only then can company’s like Lyft begin to implement their visions of autonomous cars in cities worldwide.
[1] https://www.theverge.com/2016/9/18/12944506/lyft-self-driving-car-prediction-2021-john-zimmer
[2] https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2017/11/08/magazine/tech-design-future-autonomous-car-20-percent-sex-death-liability.html
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Hi, CKimmel7! Great point that although the technology might be available in 2020, the rules and regulations might not be. It’s an interesting moral and social question, and something we all need to discuss if we want to live in a world Mr. Zimmer discussed in his Medium article.
Great discussion on a really complicated and interesting subject, especially moving forward in the next decade or so. Adding onto some previous comments, I also think there are some additional concerns that need to be addressed before a fully-autonomous vehicle network becomes practical, especially in America. In addition to subjects like data privacy and the cybersecurity advances and rules that will be necessary, I wonder whether geography and existing infrastructure will significantly impact the feasibility of full autonomy. As Patrice touched on, trends like vehicle autonomy and ridesharing services are especially practical in major metropolitan areas, where users can really reap the benefits of flexibility, convenience, and increased productivity, without any of the drawbacks. However, I can imagine there being significantly more challenges to such a system when we start considering transportation in rural areas or in between major cities. Battery technology and the driving range of electric vehicles is also another subject that society and industry needs to face as we move in the direction of autonomous transportation.
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Hi, Howard! I definitely agree that the idea of an automated fleet of vehicles seems more practical in a city-setting, and not as feasible in rural areas. However, I think Mr. Zimmer’s argument is that with a fleet of automated vehicles, the infrastructure of our towns, cities, and rural areas will change. So maybe in 10 or 20 years, the definition of towns, cities, and rural areas will be different and not as defined by transportation?
Hey ELauren,
A very well written article with a solid research conducted upon future transportation.
I see Mr. Zimmer’s take on the argument of future transportation, I also believe these ride hailing applications to be a drain on time and money in the long run upon its consumers (specially when the driver as well as the app is making profits on every ride sold).
Functionality of the multi-billion companies such as Lyft and Uber also tends to depend upon the possession of vehicles by its drivers.
What are your takes on the issue?
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Hi, Dev! Thank you! I think Mr. Zimmer’s argument is that ride-sharing, and in the future automated vehicles, will become the norm. If that’s true, most people won’t own personal vehicles, and transportation expenses will be spent on ride-sharing. The transportation ecosystem will change. People won’t spend money on buying and maintaining a car (such as paying as and parking), but on hailing cars. And yes, there will still be vehicles in the future, but Mr. Zimmer argues that they will be owned by these ride-sharing companies, not necessarily the individual drivers.
Hi,
After reading your piece, I couldn’t stop envisioning the drastic changes that would accompany these fleets when approaching urban design. We would no longer need parking spaces everywhere, roads most likely would be designed and created differently, and we probably wouldn’t even need traffic lights if the vehicles were able to communicate with one another. I believe you have talked about a great topic that does not only interest entrepreneurs but also urban planners and designers. With synchronized autonomous vehicles, we can have faster and more efficient transportation with also less accidents. With that said, do you believe that in the long run, we would most benefit from autonomous vehicles as substitutes to individual ownership of cars or as substitutes to public transportation?
Hi elauren.
This is an exciting topic, thanks for writing about it. Like you said, autonomous vehicles have the potential to drastically change cities. They can also have a huge impact on logistics and how people think about cars in general. However, like others, I think Zimmer is very optimistic with his prediction. Lyft has as much to gain as it has to lose. If companies like Waymo or DiDi Chuxing manage to implement an extensive autonomous service first, Uber and Lyft could disappear from the market very fast. ckimmel7 already talked about most obstacles and I would like to add public opinion as another. The recent Uber accident showed that news of autonomous car crashes get worldwide coverage which could have a lasting impact on further regulation.
I also don’t believe that private car ownership will end anytime soon, not even in cities. People still want to own cars, and the continuing success and growth of premium brands shows that many are interested in more than transportation. That’s why I think autonomous fleets will have the biggest impact on public transportation.