Self-driving cars are the future. But what about the billion human-driven vehicles today?
- Frustrated by how little time cars actually spend on the road, Paulin Dementhon founded Drivy, which aims to make carsharing as common as hailing a taxi.
- “Having one car is expensive and boring, but having 50,000 cars parked everywhere is cool and convenient”
- How we get from A to B is set to change in big ways. So who is poised to benefit the most?
There’s a lot of talk about how self-driving cars are going to change the world. And, with some estimates pointing to 10 million of them on the road by 2020, that change will happen fast.
But there are a billion vehicles already on our roads. How do we change the present, while acknowledging the future?
What about the younger generations, who either don’t want to own a car outright or may not be able to afford any vehicle — let alone a self-driving one — in the next few years?
The solution, says Paulin Dementhon, who spoke at TOA 2016, is carsharing on a mass scale. While human progress is neither automatic nor inevitable, recognising our ability to make use of unused resources — and acting on it — pushes us forward.
Dementhon’s Drivy, which has raised more than $43 million to develop its P2P carsharing platform, wants everyone to walk down the street and see parked cars as the kind of opportunity that can change the world: not in 2020, but today, in 2017.
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Drivy allows P2P carsharing: how do you pitch is as an idea to someone who doesn’t yet understand it?
Paulin Dementhon, Drivy: Drivy is the platform to rent a car next door with your smartphone. Cars spend 93 per cent of their time parked. That’s a big waste on a very valuable asset and has a negative impact on cities. On-demand cars can replace private car trips in large cities and make cities greener.
Do you see different age demographics adopting the technology at different rates?
It seems like a younger generation who had grown up with P2P sharing would use it more readily — or is this not the case? How do you sell the Drivy idea to people who have grown up with “ownership”?
Paulin Dementhon, Drivy: The top use case is to rent a car to go on a weekend trip and escape the city. Drivy is used by young urban actives who are time poor and asset lite, and don’t want the hassle associated with owning a car. Our customers think having one car is expensive and boring, but having 50,000 cars parked everywhere is cool and convenient.
Drivy is a platform, so it is all about supply and demand. People who own a car and rent it out are the key for Drivy’s success. The owners earn money and offset costs with Drivy. At the same time they help to make use of existing resources.
One of the dreams of the sharing economy is that there will be close to zero “slack time” — that is, where cars are rarely sitting empty and unused.
Does this naturally mean that car manufacturing will decrease, as fewer cars are needed? What other knock-on effects might a future society face when sharing becomes very widespread?
Paulin Dementhon, Drivy: Drivy’s vision is to offer a car at every corner whenever you need it with one click. The conclusion would be that people would shift from ownership to usage. When cars are used as efficiently as possible, this will affect the number of cars in the cities.
There will be less cars and a lot more space you can use for the city of tomorrow. Instead of parking spaces, there can be parks and playgrounds!
In the near future, self-driving cars and rideables (electric scooters and skateboards etc) look set to make a huge impact, especially in cities.
When there are lots of different “levels” of transport available do you see use cases being divided between vehicle type? (i.e. cycles/rideables for short trips, P2P sharing for medium trips, ownership for long trips)
Paulin Dementhon, Drivy: There will be a great change in how we get from A to B in the coming years. People have already stopped viewing the car as the best way to get everywhere. Instead, people use what is best for the given situation. Scooters are great for short distances within the city, while public transport brings you to every place in the city.
Private carsharing lets you escape the city for weekend trips or holidays. Self-driving cars will change the way we understand mobility. There will be one platform where you just order your autonomous car with one tap.
When self-driving cars become normal, will that change the Drivy premise? Or simply augment it?
Will I be able to “order” someone’s car to drive to my door and pick me up? Will everyone’s car become, essentially, a taxi?
Paulin Dementhon, Drivy: With autonomous cars there will no longer be the question of owning a car: you’ll just use one when you need one. Platforms like Drivy have two key success factors.
We know how to create and balance supply and demand. And they really trust us. In the future, the platform that wins the race will be the one that’s able to send the right car at the right moment with the perfect user experience, and also has a strong brand.
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This conversation has been edited for clarity and length.
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Originally published at blog.toa.berlin on May 21, 2017.
