How big will the autonomous driving market be?
Waymo, Alphabet’s autonomous driving subsidiary, says it is to purchase 62,000 plug-in hybrid Chrysler Pacifica, the minivan being adapted for autonomous driving at the companies’ plant in Michigan, replacing the model it has been testing for some time, the Lexus RX: so far, Waymo has rolled out about 600 vehicles in Arizona, California, Washington , Michigan and Georgia.
In January, Waymo announced an agreement with Fiat Chrysler for several thousand units, which will be part of the new figure. At the end of March, the company announced it was buying 20,000 Jaguar I-Pace electric cars, which suggests imminent deployment in a large number of cities.
Also on Thursday, Japan’s Softbank announced a $2.25 billion investment in GM’s autonomous driving project, dating back to the acquisition of Cruise in March 2016. The automotive giant led by Mary Barra has already commented on previous occasions its intentions to exploit fleets of autonomous taxis, as well as developing business models to allow passengers to make use of journey times. Softbank has significant stakes in several taxi services, such as Uber (15%), Didi Chuxing (20%), Ola Cabs (30%) or Grab (60%), showing it intends to play a big role in their development.
A city like New York, with an estimated population of 8.6 million people in 2017, is currently supplied with some 13,600 taxis and around 63,000 vehicles overwhelmingly operated by Uber (60,000 or so) and other companies like Lyft. People are using fewer taxis and moving over to mobility applications. And what will happen when these apps shed their highest operating cost, their drivers? Depending on how these vehicles are operated, Uber’s figures suggest a gradual roll out, aimed at establishing a presence and brand image. But obviously, if the demand for driverless taxis is there, more of them will hit the streets.
As I pointed out a few days ago in relation to Daimler, it’s clear that investors are getting behind the idea of the car as a service and no longer a consumer product. Some aspects of Waymo’s deal with Fiat Chrysler point to the possibility that the technology company, which has always stated that it has no interest in manufacturing vehicles and instead in manufacturing the best driver of vehicles, might license its technology for vehicles to be sold to individuals, but the indications are that this type of demand will fall off as all our transportation needs are met, either by car sharing or private use, allowing us to move from A to B while working or sleeping. At the same time, growing numbers of cities are introducing measures to discourage the use of private vehicles, which could generate additional pressure.
How many fleets, how many tens of thousands of autonomous vehicles and how many companies are ready to enter the urban passenger transportation market? What will this size be if we consider not only the urban passengers transportation segment, but also long distance transportation, cargo, logistics, couriers, etc.? How big will this market be at a global level, how fast will it grow, how concentrated or fragmented will it be, and how will the technological dominance of Waymo impact on it?
(En español, aquí)
