Self-Driving Cars Will Literally Transform Transportation

Self-driving cars and their impact on transportation and the economy are constantly in the news.

For example, Gary Vaynerchuk mentioned that restaurant owners could benefit from self-driving technology by working with ride-sharing and commuter services to create mobile restaurants that serve you food during your ride to work.

When people talk about self-driving technology, they generally talk about self-driving cars or commercial delivery trucks. Sometimes people talk about how autonomy will revolutionize commuting and could create an expectation that one could be working on the ride to work.

People mention how the car could be restructured to have four seats that face each other so that people riding together can more easily chat or play a game. Others have talked about cars being sectioned off into 4 mini sections so that people can have privacy when commuting. Self-driving cars could bring an end to the traditional need of owning a car, and instead, individuals would be subscribers to a ride-sharing or commuting service that would chauffeur them around.

The Big Transformation

These are all great concepts, but they are still built around the traditional idea of a car.

For the first few years, maybe even the first decade or so of self-driving vehicles this might make sense. Until we are more confident in the safety of the technology, we won’t want to remove seatbelts. However, once we feel as safe in cars as in trains or airplanes, then things will start to change.

Concepts like GaryVee’s will start to be realized. Why stop for breakfast when breakfast can take you to work? Why wake up and get in a car when you can live in a literally mobile home that knows what time to leave it’s designated parking area, yard, or fuel station to drive you to work. You wake up, shower, walk out the door and right into your office building.

Think about how much more prevalent party buses will become. Heading home from the club? Not in a car. That would be so passée 🙄. Keep the party going with UberClub, the self-driving mobile club.

If we really are going to see the advent of a new age where people no longer own cars but instead share them, then I think we will see an age where there is a paradigm shift in the way cars are designed. The user experience can change drastically, and it should. The possibilities are enormous and virtually endless. I for one can’t wait to see where this road takes us.