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posted by CoolHand on Thursday May 21 2015, @03:44PM   Printer-friendly
from the want-to-ride-it-all-night-long dept.

Barclays PLC analyst Brian Johnson predicts that U.S. automobile sales will drop 40% within the next 25 years due to disruption caused by driverless technology, and that vehicle ownership rates will be cut in half as families move to having just one car:

Large-volume automakers "would need to shrink dramatically to survive," Johnson wrote. "GM and Ford would need to reduce North American production by up to 68 percent and 58 percent, respectively."

Self-driving cars have become a frequent topic for auto executives as the technology for the vehicles emerges. The market for autonomous technology will grow to $42 billion by 2025 and self-driving cars may account for a quarter of global auto sales by 2035, according to Boston Consulting Group. By 2017, partially autonomous vehicles will become available in "large numbers," the firm said in a report in April.

Johnson's report, entitled "Disruptive Mobility," contends that the shift to cars that drive themselves will upend the auto industry. "While extreme, a historical precedent exists," Johnson wrote. "Horses once filled the many roles that cars fill today, but as the automobile came along, the population of horses dropped sharply."

"By removing the driver from the equation (the largest cost in a taxi ride), the average cost per mile to the consumer could be 44 cents for a private ride in a standard sedan and 8 cents for a shared ride in a two-seater," Johnson wrote, noting that would be "well below" the $3 to $3.50 a mile consumers now pay to ride in an UberX car or the $1 to $1.50 a mile for an UberPool vehicle.

 
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  • (Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday May 21 2015, @05:41PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Thursday May 21 2015, @05:41PM (#186116)

    That's a great idea! Instead of rush hour being limited to just a couple of hours in the morning and the evening, you can now have rush hour 24 hours a day with all these empty cars zipping back and fro between 'hubby' and 'wifey'! Hurray for efficiency!

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  • (Score: 2) by Dunbal on Thursday May 21 2015, @05:57PM

    by Dunbal (3515) on Thursday May 21 2015, @05:57PM (#186125)

    Not really. You haven't increased the population size. You've reduced the amount of vehicles on the roads. The amount of roads remains the same. Why would you expect "rush hour" 24 hours a day? Sure, there would be more traffic on average, but the actual rush hour "peak" traffic would be far lower. Add to this the fact that most traffic jams are started and maintained by bad driving practices (accidents which autonomous vehicles just wouldn't have, rubbernecking that autonomous vehicles wouldn't do, and those thousands of endless little territorial battles as people fight to get into or prevent people from merging into lanes), and it would mean efficient flow on the roads overall.

    • (Score: 1) by Squidious on Friday May 22 2015, @01:42AM

      by Squidious (4327) on Friday May 22 2015, @01:42AM (#186284)

      You may have decreased the total number of cars, but you have increased the total number of miles driven daily and thus the number of cars on the road. Example from today: My wife and I both commute 10 miles to our jobs. We have two cars that make a round trip and travel a total of 2 x 2 x 10 = 40 miles per workday. Example from the future: We share the car and it makes two round trips for each of per workday, traveling 4 x 2 x 10 = 80 miles per workday. This leads to smaller garages but more traffic congestion.

      --
      The terrorists have won, game, set, match. They've scared the people into electing authoritarian regimes.
      • (Score: 2) by Dunbal on Friday May 22 2015, @11:08AM

        by Dunbal (3515) on Friday May 22 2015, @11:08AM (#186396)

        ou may have decreased the total number of cars, but you have increased the total number of miles driven daily and thus the number of cars on the road.

        Not really, because cars can't be in two places at once. If there are fewer cars then automatically there will be less congestion - it doesn't matter how many miles they drive. They can't all be driving to the same place/through the same intersection all day long. Yes overall volume will be up, but the peak has to be lower.