The automotive industry as a sign of the times
Uber has bought Otto, a startup created by former Google employees that has come up with some very advanced developments for self-driving trucks, with the idea of putting Anthony Levandowski, one of the people who helped design the first Google self-driving care in charge of initiatives both companies say will rethink transport. The idea is to use the company’s technology at the same time as it moves into the transport and logistics sectors, a cake with huge economic potential.
At the same time, Uber is launching a self-driving pilot project with Volvo in Pittsburgh, although two engineers will be in the front seats, one ready to take the controls if necessary and to meet current state legal requirements, and another taking notes. Trips during the trial period will be free, and the company says that they will be very cheap once the scheme gets underway, even in rural areas. Uber founder Travis Kalanick says that self-driving cars are the future of the company: a future that Google started, but Uber is being first in bringing it to the final users.
Some estimates put the value of the self-driving vehicle sector at $560 billion, a figure the company wants a large part of. Within five or so years we are going to see huge changes to the way that cars are built and how they are powered, and also in the way people buy and use vehicles. The automotive sector is going to be redefined, and this is going to happen quicker than anybody imagined: there is no denying the evidence.
Obviously, Uber’s team of drivers are now wondering what will happen to them, and if they have simply been used by the company while it perfected its technology.
Uber employs around a million drivers around the world, and the 4,000 or so in Pittsburgh, along with 3.5 truck drivers in the United States and the billions of other people who earn a living behind the wheel will all now be wondering what kind of future they have. The short answer is that they are going to lose their jobs over the coming decade, although Travis Kalanick thinks that in the final tally, that will not mean net job losses.
On the up side, we will no longer be paying out to buy cars and to park them, to maintain them and to fill their tanks, or having accidents, or polluting the air. I believe this is one of the hottest topics today, and a very real and powerful showcase for innovation: we have entered one of the most important periods of change in the last century, and within four or five years our world will look very different.
(En español, aquí)
