Your Development on Top
How Urban Mobility is Changing the Face of Real Estate

At Greenspot, we focus on mobility for developers, so we wanted to share a bit about what we’ve learned of these various breakthroughs. There are few developers still operating today that didn’t keep up with changes in technology. The successful ones embrace new technology.
The greatest developers succeeded by anticipating change, not by following it. Progress and breakthroughs in technology are accelerating, allowing you to add triple bottom line value. Here are some of the ones you need to know.
1) Car Share:

Mobility won’t be reserved to transportation companies. Developers now have the ability to position themselves to create their own mobility network. A new model of car use, car sharing will provide on demand mobility to anyone who wants it. In the same way you can download an app on your phone whenever you like, you’ll be able to find and use a car. Car sharing does away with the biggest costs of vehicle ownership: maintenance, insurance, and upfront costs. Given that most cars are used only 5% of the day — and the percentage is even lower in urban areas — traditional car ownership isn’t just nonsensical, it’s impractical and expensive. As a result, more urbanites are selling their cars and converting to this form of car use. Here’s where developers can swoop in. In the past, developers would follow transportation hubs to predict the next wave of urban loci of popularity. In New York City, we saw this in Williamsburg, Brooklyn. Its proximity to Manhattan and easy transport over the L line allowed it to become one of the most in-demand locations in the city. Now, we see this transition occurring with Jersey City. The convenience and speed of the PATH train has created a new hot spot for development. However, car sharing will allow developers to create their own transportation hubs. This will connect locations distant from public transit networks and drive demand in further areas of the city.
2) Electric Vehicles:

A recent article by the Wall Street Journal has indicated that the key barrier to mass electric vehicle adoption is the lack of publicly accessible charging stations. EV charging stations have been around for some time now, so why is this the time to move? First, demand. Electric vehicles have seen a 33% demand increase year over year. More and more people are choosing to buy electric vehicles. Urban areas are particularly popular areas for electric vehicles. Driving distances tend to be close, and the amount of time spent in idle traffic doesn’t waste gas in an electric vehicles, for obvious reasons. The problem comes when tenants buy electric vehicles in enough numbers that the charging stations in your building are overwhelmed. Right now, in most developments, it only takes one or two cars to occupy every available EV charging spot in the building. EV drivers don’t like having to plug into the same outlets used by microwaves. They’re great for giving power to heat a hot pocket, but they’re not as good at making electric vehicles ready for the road. The residents frustrated with the lack of these charging spots will begin to seek out developments that have this amenity already available. Most developments have already begun to build out their next phase of electric charging stations.
3) Autonomous Vehicles:

Autonomous vehicles are not as far off as you may think. In fact, they’re already on the road. Google’s Waymo project is one of the most advanced. Already, they’ve driven 3 million autonomous miles. Each week, often on notoriously tricky city streets, they drive 25,000 more miles. Maybe it unnerves you to put cars in the hands of robots (do robots have hands?), but it’s a lot better than the distracted, drunk, or careless driving we have to deal with on a daily basis. I’d take an automated car any day over pretty much anyone you see driving an SUV up the Belt Parkway. For whatever reason, it’s always an SUV driver making lane changes like they’re in training for the Daytona 500. Either way, autonomous vehicles are already road ready. The hardest hit by this development will be taxi drivers. 80% of the current cost of a cab, Uber, or Lyft goes to the driver. For developments, its big news. It means people can live further from city centers without owning a vehicle.
4) Aircraft/Drones:

Here’s where it gets wild. Drones don’t need to stay the size of birds. They can be built bigger, and they can carry human passengers. Think of a helicopter, but smaller. In Dubai, these companies already have done test rides though the futuristic city. These drones will be able to literally fly through traffic and alight on the roof of the rider’s desired destination. Or even land right on the road.
Ehang is one of the early leaders in this field. Their “Ehang 184” is set to start carrying passengers as a demonstration this summer. The drone is equipped with a fail-safe system that will land the aircraft if any components break. The aircraft’s power system is also able to adjust for abnormalities — it will adjust to keep both the passenger and vehicle safe.
There are other players to watch too. Hoversurf has an electric powered hoverbike. Watching the video of it in action is a combination of pure fear and adrenaline. I like my legs attached to my body, so I’ll never use it myself. Watch the video of Hoversurf here: Hoverbike. There are others like Volocopter, Aerofex, and Malloy Aeronautics too.
With autonomous drones, developers can offer their tenants the ability to soar over traffic congestion and easily access any part of the city. Even better, developers will be able to program the drone to go off course and send their worst tenants into the deep wilderness. Just kidding, that technology is a bit further off and probably could get you into legal trouble.
If you’re interested in learning more about these technologies, and our thoughts on which of these big changes in mobility and real estate you can apply to your development, write to us here.
Greenspot EV
201–268–8036
scott@joingreenspot.com
Greenspot is an electric vehicle infrastructure development company that has a vision of a fully electric network in the USA. We work with developers, universities, hotels, and municipalities to build out the infrastructure needed for the EV revolution.
