Along the base of the Santa Cruz Mountains runs Highway 280, serving as an alternate corridor for commuters heading to San Jose, San Francisco, or points across Silicon Valley. Amongst the hills and satellite dishes serving Stanford University, a single small vehicle makes its way north, staying steady and matching the speed limit in one of the lanes. The reaction to this car is always the same the first time you see it: the realization that no one is behind the wheel, the double-take that “no one is behind the wheel,” and then the furious looking around to see what vehicle around it has the remote control. Once you see the roof-mounted the Google Driverless Car.
Is this our future and will you ever own one yourself?
Probably yes and probably no.
Google has been developing this car for the last 4 years and has been funding it for some phenomenal success. They have managed to address concerns from critics and insiders, from early snarky ads from Detroit, to comments that robots will soon be our masters. Nevada has become the first state to ratify laws allowing for the driverless vehicle, which today has been tested across Toyota’s Prius model to the Audi TT (the Prius was the first to obtain a driverless license plate in Nevada). Wikipedia (always super reliable ;-) has stated that the equipment costs are near $220,000.00 USD. But, like all prototypes, these costs will be streamlined during production.
So why is this our future and why wont we ever own one?
The short answer is “the shared economy” in which you will use the driverless cars as needed, discarding them at central locations or literally leaving them for the next person to utilize them. Just sign up for an account on your smartphone, they unlock the car and register it to your name to take you to your destination or keep it for a few days while you run errands. When you are done, the next person picks it up or the car could be dispatched to another location for pick up.
The notion that buying was the only model that made sense has evolved as we found new and unique ways to spread the costs for folks who need assets only part time. We have people staying in our houses, using our cars and vacation homes when convenient. We crowd-source work, gather microfunding from various sources, and we find new and unique ways to spread the costs.
The driverless car is the perfect vehicle (excuse the pun) for the shared economy. The automobile can use used “as needed,” then dispatched to the next location for usage. This alone overcomes the issue with sharing today, as you need to go to the car. How great would it be to have the car show up at your doorstep?
Think of the additional benefits of being able to multitask for your morning commute, get your kids situated for their day at school, take that important work call, or program your list of errands into your car for the best, quickest route possible.
With fleets of these cars spread around your community, you can now just pay for the usage instead of buying the car – let someone else pay for the cost of the car for the other 19 hours a day you don’t need it or want it.
Too Futuristic For You?
Sharing is an idea who’s time has come. There is no end to the assets that can be shared in the new economy. Today we share expensive asset like automobiles and homes, and we share jobs, expertise, childcare, etc. We have amazing organizations popping up around the globe like Car2go which powers Austin Texas, Citibikes in New York, AirBnb allowing you to stay just about any place on the planet, Chegg and Bookcrosing share the high cost of books for college students, and Shareable is the central location to help you hear about all of them. In fact, a recent poll by Altimeter showed that 1/3 of 200 shareable startups have received VC funding. As Theodore Levitt said, “People don’t want to buy a quarter-inch drill, they want a quarter-inch hole.”
And in case you were wondering, you can even hire a “wing women” to help you get dates in Boston. There is no end to what we can share.
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