The Future of Self Driving Cars you should know about
– The ‘Uber model’ vs the ‘Self driving pods’ business model
#Model1 Ride-sharing companies such as Uber, Lyft (partnering with Waymo) have been working on AI based autonomous tech
These driver-less vehicles are considered Level 4 and Level 5 (a car that requires a human driver is considered Level 2 or 3 – semi-autonomous)
The future may be based on renting out these taxis without ever having to own a car (something that Peter Diamandis also calls out in the book, ‘The future is Faster than you Think’).
This is though a hard AI problem to solve – including the ethical and legal implications. India, for example, has banned self-driving cars to protect driver jobs.
#Model2– The ‘self-driving PODs are slow, boring and weird looking – and that’s probably a good thing’.
As compared to the first model, small low stakes self-driving pilots are already being used.
Many startups are betting on self-driving cars in low-risk applications – limited to 25 mph. Such as grocery delivery.
The start-up Nuro has launched delivery pods that are perfectly fine for delivering groceries. This will be not just an acceptable use-case to shuttling humans but also allow them to test-iterate and compete eventually against the Waymo’s of the world.
French startup Navya has been operating a similar-looking autonomous shuttle in Las Vegas for almost a year. The shuttle crosses eight intersections on its circular route, has transported thousands of passengers
Amazon interestingly, is playing out both the models partnering with Lyft while exploring driver-less grocery delivery with pods. Zoox, the autonomous vehicle company, was acquired by Amazon for roughly $1.2 billion last June.
Either ways, its an exciting future.
As Sergey Brin puts it, ‘We don’t claim that the cars are going to be perfect. Our goal is to beat human drivers’
What do you think is the future of autonomous cars?
[On a lighter note, I was thinking of this and then the image of the traffic choked Silk-Board in Bangalore popped before me. Maybe not in Bangalore in my lifetime :)]
Sources :
- The future is faster than you think, Peter Diamandis
- Swipe to Unlock: A Primer on Technology and Business Strategy
- Forbes on the Pod-up trend
- Verge on Pod based delivery services
- Waymo website
- Wired on Self-driving cars
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