CRCM Mobility Roundtable

By Anh Le

With 15 experts from VCs and startups in the automobile industry attending, our roundtable was filled with discussions from the current state of transportation to the future of flying cars and complete automation on the road. Among the attendees are Jim Adler from Toyota AI Venture, Christian Noske from Renault Nissan Mitsubishi Alliance, Debjit Mukerji from Next47, Homan Yuen from Fusion Fund, Kenny Liao from Cargo, Nagesh Gupta from Civil Maps, etc.

We are all excited for what self-driving technology can deliver but we are also cautious about public perception and government regulation in the space. Below are the five key takeaways:

1. Single occupancy vehicle is the main culprit for congestion and pollution

Congestion in LA costs the city a staggering $23B per year. Ride sharing services like Uber and Lyft actually exacerbates the problem since they are pulling riders off buses, subways and bicycles and putting them in cars with subsidized fares. The main culprit here is actually single occupancy vehicles, which is estimated to account for 76% of traffic on the road during commute time.

2. Last mile mobility is not the next Uber or Lyft

Recently, a lot of capital has been pumped into last mile mobility ranging from dockless bikes (oFo, Mobike, Spin, Limebike) to electric scooters (Bird, Scoot). Will it be a winner take all market? Probably not. We think customers have very low switching cost and so many available options. At best, they will co-exist since each mode of transportation can be a good fit for different scenarios. At worst, they will have to stop their service as indicated by this cease- and-desist letter from the San Francisco City Attorney.

3. Sky taxi is taking off pending government’s green light

Joby Aviation, an air-taxi startup in Santa Cruz, recently announced a fresh $100M equity round. Its full scale, electric and vertical take-off and landing technology makes it quiet and safe to fly above residential areas. Would you pay the equivalent of an Uber fare to fly from San Jose to San Francisco in less than 15 minutes? We think it is a compelling customer value proposition. But in order for sky taxis to take off, government and companies will have to step in to provide proper air traffic control first.

4. We will not have level 5 complete automation anytime soon

Today we are still stuck with a lot of ethical debates about the level of risk society would be willing to incur with self-driving cars. Despite the amazing speed of technology development, perhaps we have to frontload those ethical questions before sensible business models can be developed and mass adoption can occur. Our speculation is that small scale implementation can happen in the next 10 years. Autonomous vehicles could see fast adoption in last mile delivery or long haul transportation. Countries in Africa without existing infrastructure or Saudi Arabia without the capital constraints could be more open to sky taxis. But level 5 mass adoption may not happen in our lifetime.

5. But if that day comes, be a good citizen

To achieve complete autonomy, a large amount of data on travel behaviors will be needed. Inside autonomous vehicles, cameras will record everything one does. This prediction can be hilariously wrong but you can imagine a future where an autonomous car will just drive you to the police station if any abnormal behavior is detected (against your will of course).

Stay tuned for our next round table. Feel free to leave questions and comments below!