Back in the 1980s, when I was analyzing market trends in the U.S., I subscribed to the Futurist magazine. Published by the World Future Society, it provided articles, studies and opinions from scholars, scientists and governments about developments taking place that will impact what happens in the coming decades.

So let’s take a look. We don’t need a subscription, we’ll just speculate. What could go wrong?

First, let’s get the “colonization of a new planet” idea off the table. Not gonna happen. Watch The Martian with Matt Damon – no way I’m going there and I never pass up a good road trip. To travel to another solar system and planet “with Earth-like conditions” is out of the question for now and the forseeable future. Why?

According to MIT Technology Review (by Emerging Technology from the arXiv, 6/22/18) it would take 6,300 years to reach the closest star to our sun, Proxima Centauri, 4.2 light years away traveling at today’s fastest technology of 434,960 mph, which is the speed the Parker Solar Probe will reach. The planet near that star is Proxima b, a possible habitable world.

6,300 years to our closest star after the sun. Then we’d need time to find parking so let’s move on.

Besides the stars, there are things we can predict right here on Earth that are a lot more realistic. Like cars. Yes, of course there will be more electric cars, a lot more each year. And a lot more electric pickup trucks. There are already 1.3 million EV cars on American roads according to Int’l Energy Agency’s Global EV Data Explorer. As this trend continues, the cost is coming down. Pure economics, the more they sell, the lower the production costs.

But I have read so many other articles and listened to fascinating podcasts discussing the idea of never again buying a car and instead driving a different car every day. You tap into a fleet and when you need to go somewhere, you summon your car and it drives itself to your house in minutes and you get in and drive off for your day at the lake or your week at the shore – or just your quick trip to the grocery store.

Too expensive? Are you kidding? You are only paying for the actual time you need the car. That car in your garage, the one you own? You use it for maybe five hours a week to commute to and from work, a few more hours to run errands and take off somewhere on the weekends. All of which adds up to say two hours a day in your car. No way you say? Okay let’s use three hours per day which represents only 12.5% of the total hours in your day. Only delivery drivers, truckers, traveling salespeople and others are spending six hours or more driving each day.

Quick math: if you spend three hours per day using your car, that means it is sitting IDLE for 21 hours per day. You are still paying full price for that car whether it sits in your garage, a parking lot or is driven somewhere. Same car insurance costs. And you have to pay the maintenance: oil changes, brakes, new tires, repairs. So your $30,000 car – let’s add a paltry $1,000 per year for maintenance plus $1,825 annually for gas (3 hours per day would equal about $5 per day in gas x 365 days). Let’s assume you paid cash for the car and you keep it five years, so the cost of your car if you bought it is $6,000 per year ($30,000 divided by the 5 years you keep it). Let’s forget the taxes and financing costs you probably paid. So that car is costing you $8,825 per year ($6000 + $1,000 maintenance + $1,825 gas). That’s for a car that sits in your garage, workplace or parking lot for 21 hours per day! We all do it. That’s $24 per day ($8,825 cost / 365 days).

That’s nuts, say the people who have developed the idea of fleet participation. Why pay $24 per day for a car that sits idle most of the day when you can spend far less to “lease” a ride for the one or two hours you need it? Exact estimates and figures are difficult to find but there are some who predict that vehicle ownership will drop by as much as 80% by the year 2035.

Yes, Americans love their cars and I love love loved my ’67 MG or various Toyotas and Hondas or BMW or any of the twelve automobiles I have owned in my lifetime. That’s one car every four years among 47 years of ownership, which is fairly typical. But I am intrigued by this idea or the promise of it. I can drive a different car each day. I don’t have to take it to the dealer, ever. Don’t need to worry about replacing the windshield wipers, the oil, tires or anything else. And as long as I plan ahead just a little (by hitting my speed dial to call the fleet to have a car delivered in minutes), I can have it all – except the ownership headaches that typically go along with it.

In the future, when this concept becomes a reality, most homes won’t need a garage since your car will be delivered fresh each day. Think about how much you can save by converting that garage space into a new office, guest house or apartment. Now it can become a space that generates incremental income.

By now, you’ve realized there is a new part of the future since I mentioned your daily fleet car will be delivered to your door, but not by humans. It will arrive self-driven and it will be in your neighborhood because it just finished helping someone in your town as they got dropped off at their front door. Yes, your car is arriving from your neighbor’s house and it will be ready for you.

Self-driving is still being tested and definitely is not going away. With more eyes (cameras, sensors, computers all around the car) than your two eyes, the self-driving cars, when perfected, will have far quicker reflexes and reaction times and make far better and smarter decisions via its internal AI system when a deer or accident unfolds right in your path. My wife’s nephew recently used his self-driving car to travel from Los Angeles to Tallahassee while he played videogames in the driver’s seat. True story. And he made the trip in much shorter time since the “Driver” did not need to pull over for a night’s sleep.

Is all this truly plausible? Already, virtually all auto manufacturers have invested and are testing their own versions to get a handle on these emerging technologies. Major semiconductor makers already have chips out there to sell to auto manufacturers and the chips are only getting smarter and cheaper every day.

There is much more to this story, more reliable research needs to be published and released. As I delve further into this, I will provide updates on these trends.

Chris Ebel
12/8/21

Image credit: @van4u