Self-Driving Cars: Transforming Vancouver Real Estate
A Quick Primer
Despite the recent tragedy in Arizona, the driverless cars being tested today are the Palm Pilot version of what will eventually be the iPhones of autonomous vehicles in the future. Adoption is coming, it’s a debate about when.
Certain features of AI in cars have been around since 2006: auto braking, parking assist etc. and currently, cars are being programmed with AI features like highway autopilot. Fully autonomous cars will be released as early as 2022, and ride sharing companies are investing heavily.
Right now, humans are the only ones that can perceive and make decisions based on what we see in a split second, kind of important when you do something as complex as driving. However, the theory is that AI has superhuman decision making capacity and 360 degree vision will vastly improve driving efficiency. It just needs the proper information, testing and reasoning ability to work properly.
By using gaming-type programming and advanced sensor technology, it’s possible to program a computer to understand its environment well enough to drive a car. Today, it’s imperfect. In five years, it will exceed human ability.
However, if municipalities, Lyft and Uber can utilize the technology to capitalize on the efficiencies, the our world will rapidly change.
Autonomous Cars are Wayyy More Efficient than Humans
Autonomous vehicles are certain to increase travel efficiency, decrease traffic itself, and make trips between home and work safer and less stressful by driving faster, closer together, and automatically re-calibrating routes based on congestion.
The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development did a study that assumed rapid adoption of autonomous cars through ride sharing companies like Uber and Lyft, and maybe municipalities purchased fleets of autonomous vehicles (think this).
The report had some significant findings. Autonomous vehicles would cut delays by 60% or more, such that riders can spend more time working, safely sipping their coffee, or even sleeping on their commute. This study (arguably) relates almost as much to rapid adoption of autonomous vehicle ride-sharing as it does to the advancement in autonomous technology itself, but in this scenario, it no longer makes sense to own a car, because the cost of ownership is more than ride sharing and the convenience of ride sharing is higher.
The study states that if adoption was high, the amount of cars needed on the road to meet capacity is only 10% of current volumes. That’s a 90% reduction of cars in existence.
Imagine what that means for space around us. 90% less cars street parking. 90% less cars at shopping malls, in downtown parkades.
So, Real Estate Advantages. #1 — Proximity Issues Vanish
Imagine being able to sleep on your commute? Imagine being able to work on your commute? You won’t worry about all of the negative effects associated with commute times if your commute just involves the working or instagramming you’d be doing anyway. You can finally live in an affordable single family home in Chilliwack while capitalizing on the 2-hour commute to work, sleep, or generally relax.
#2 — Decongestion and More Space For More Fun Stuff
Let’s start with this map:
Everything orange is a metered parking stall, the blue and green zones are resident parking. This is not an exhaustive map, but clearly street parking dominates most of the busiest and most desirable parts of the city. If autonomous vehicles can reduce the amount of street parking, think of the space that will open up on roads for further expansion of housing lot lines.
Now this map. I count 20 parkades, let me know if I’m wrong. That’s 20 sites for new, high density housing and commercial application, likely hundreds of units.
If we can reduce the demand by 90%, think of the opportunities we’ll have globally to reduce high rise parkades, and even better, get rid of gargantuan, fender-bender-inducing, hideous-scars-on-the-face-of-the-planet that we call shopping mall parking lots.
The Economist estimates that 25% of american cities are consumed by parking, think of the effect that having those sites opened to housing and commercial space will do for housing options and affordability.
#3 — The Underground Revolution
Right now in a mid or high-rise building, I’m required to build around 1.5 parking stalls per household, usually underground. Think about every high-rise building in Vancouver, most will have an underground parkade. Now think about what that space can be used for, and how much opportunity that opens up. Storage, data centres, you name it. Maybe we can finally add to some of our great (but limited) basement bar scene.
But Really…How Quickly Will They Become a Reality?
Fully autonomous cars will be on the market in 3–4 years. But adoption of fully autonomous fleets will take longer. The Boston Consulting Group published a report stating that to get to to 25% of the global auto market being autonomous vehicles, it will likely take 15 to 20 years after the introduction of the first vehicles, likely in the luxury sector. If Mercedes is leading the way in 2022, that’s 2037 for mass adoption. Quite a ways away in today’s terms given that Facebook is only 12-years old.
Locally, the Mayors council of BC just announced $7.1b for expansion of transit lines on in Metro Vancouver. Do we need this investment if autonomous vehicles are just around the corner?
Yes. Autonomous vehicles will eventually replace our current systems, but they must grow up to support these systems, not replace them. We still need rapid transit and we still need conventional car systems. Autonomous vehicles are clearly coming; how we react and change the way will live will be crucial to capitalizing on all the opportunities this technology brings with it. Hopefully, if my car can drive itself, I’ll finally be able to work Downtown but own a house somewhere remote and not have to worry about the crazy long, life sucking commute.
