When we think of driverless (self driving) cars, most of the time the idea that comes to mind is that we won’t need to provide input to the steering wheel. Typically, we imagine something like the scenes in the movie “IRobot” with Will Smith where his futuristic Audi R8 drives itself (and I think it also hovers? There is so much more that this technology has to offer than simply needing to “not do much” whilst sat in the drivers seat – let’s have a look at this.
First things first, we need to assume that it is possible (within the laws of physics) to create an autonomous vehicle, able to drive anywhere when commanded, with no human input. I’m not saying that this will be possible next year or in 5 years, all we need to do for this article is assume that it is possible.
The first thing you might have noticed is that, by this point in time, it might be very rare to actually see a human driver (maybe not even legal anymore). Something that immediately becomes clear is that, if people don’t drive the cars, then why have the pedals and the steering wheel at all? Get rid of it and use the space for something else possibly have them folded away for emergencies. Really though, we know that overtime, old features do get removed you probably don’t have Infra-Red file transfer on your phone anymore or a VGA port on your computer monitor or a cassette player in your car! My point is that, as things get more advanced, we tend to drop the older, no longer required features.
Now that we don’t have all the controls, we could totally adjust the interior, why not have all the sets pointing towards each other? Maybe put a bed in there – you could go to sleep as your car drives you to Scotland overnight!
Even this though is still all about just getting a person to a place, but remember the car can just drive anywhere on its own. Essentially, what we have will be a full time personal Chauffeur who will drive you (or your friends, pets, items, anything else) wherever you want, whenever you want, for free! Given this, you could send your car to collect your shopping or pick up a relative or take you home after a night out. The possibilities are literally endless.
I’ll stop here as I feel there is more to the article I can write over time. Really though, if we do become this futuristic, does a car actually make sense anymore? Perhaps we would instead be better to invest in public transport or will people always want the luxury that comes with owning your own car?
What do you think about this, how will our economy adapt as less and less driving jobs are needed? Do you have any other great use cases for self driving vehicles or other potential problems?