> The "mobility" market will be about the size of the taxi, bus, and train market.
- A personal, individual vehicle which comes to pick you up where you are and take you to exactly where you want to go is a much MUCH higher value proposition than public transit.
- Add self-driving to the mix, and the cost of that service will plummet.
- When the car providing that service can drive itself, then there is little to no inconvenience to the vehicle owner to offer that service, and significant financial incentive.
- Because car owners will be able to make "rent" from their capital investment, owning a car will start to look more like property ownership than a depreciating investment-- especially as maintenance and operation costs fall for electric vehicles.
- There will be very strong financial incentive to use self-driving ride pools instead of putting up a large wad of cash to own a car. So total car ownership will go way down, and will be done much more by the wealthy and much less by the working/middle class.
- Cost of ownership is especially high in cities (parking), and the market for ride sharing is highest. So probably many fewer city dwellers will own cars.
- Families that own can shrink to one car instead of two, since the car can drop people off or pick them up.
I think there are a lot of pretty good reasons why the vehicle market is going to change significantly in the next 15 years.
- A personal, individual vehicle which comes to pick you up where you are and take you to exactly where you want to go is a much MUCH higher value proposition than public transit.
- Add self-driving to the mix, and the cost of that service will plummet.
- When the car providing that service can drive itself, then there is little to no inconvenience to the vehicle owner to offer that service, and significant financial incentive.
- Because car owners will be able to make "rent" from their capital investment, owning a car will start to look more like property ownership than a depreciating investment-- especially as maintenance and operation costs fall for electric vehicles.
- There will be very strong financial incentive to use self-driving ride pools instead of putting up a large wad of cash to own a car. So total car ownership will go way down, and will be done much more by the wealthy and much less by the working/middle class.
- Cost of ownership is especially high in cities (parking), and the market for ride sharing is highest. So probably many fewer city dwellers will own cars.
- Families that own can shrink to one car instead of two, since the car can drop people off or pick them up.
I think there are a lot of pretty good reasons why the vehicle market is going to change significantly in the next 15 years.