Self-driving cars are in the late stages of testing in the United States. Besides safety issues, consumer skepticism, the regulatory environment will have a major impact on how quickly and widely that self-driving cars make it in the market.
Given that self-driving cars will/may be sold in the very near future, we need to better understand where the marketplace will be headed. Recently, McKinsey’s Michele Bertoncello and Dominik Weewe published a thought-provoking view of self-driving cars: “Ten Ways Autonomous Driving Could Redefine the Automotive World — The Development of Self-Driving, or Autonomous, Vehicles Is Accelerating. Here’s How They Could Affect Consumers and Companies.”
- “Industrial fleets lead the way.”
- “Car OEMs [original equipment manufacturers face a decision. Automakers worldwide will likely define and communicate their strategic position on AVs in the next two to three years.”
- “New mobility models emerge. While OEMs are developing autonomous vehicles, a variety of other transport-mobility innovations are already hitting the road.”
- “The car-service landscape changes.”
- “Car insurers might shift their business model. Car insurers have always provided consumer coverage in the event of accidents caused by human error. With driverless vehicles, auto insurers might shift the core of their business model, focusing mainly on insuring car manufacturers from liabilities from technical failure of their AVs, as opposed to protecting private customers from risks associated with human error in accidents.”
- “Companies could reshape their supply chains.”
- “Drivers have more time for everything. AVs could free as much as 50 minutes a day for users, who will be able to spend traveling time working, relaxing, or accessing entertainment.”
- “Parking becomes easier. AVs could change the mobility behavior of consumers, potentially reducing the need for parking space in the United States by more than 5.7 billion square meters.”
- “Accident rates drop. By mid-century, the penetration of AVs and other ADAS could ultimately cause vehicle crashes in the United States to fall from second to ninth place in terms of their lethality ranking among accident types.”
- “AVs accelerate robotics development for consumer applications.”
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I feel like this idea of self-driving cars is very promising considering the fact that companies such as google, tesla, and even apple are paying interest in making this a reality. My only concern would be the incentive for people who loves driving to give in to the system. What would make people give up driving manually? How would that affect the transportation system as human errors(accidents, etc.) will still occur?
Bring that this article was posted months ago; I know that the main problem for self-driving cars is that they follow traffic laws avidly. Recently many accidents have been happening involving self-driving cars because they stop for pedestrians for actually slow for a yellow light instead of accelerating. I think that they only way that this invention will work is for everyone to have a self-driving car. I do think that the idea would be beneficial, since it would free up time, but it also might increase trips by 20 minutes because they actual follow the 25mph sign. This I feel would annoy the consumer greatly.