The car you drive to work has a steering wheel, a floor pedal, an infotainment system, and an emotionally intelligent AI system that can understand your driving patterns and preferences.But when you arrive to work, you don’t park your car. Instead, you get out and the car continues moving forward autonomously, on its way to pick up another person and make you money through ridesharing, all while you head into the office for your day job.
Such a future of shared, level 5 autonomous and even electric or hybrid vehicles is not as futuristic as it seems. When Honda Motor Co. unveiled a concept car at Consumer Electronics Show 2017, called NeuV, the company offered up a vision of a ridesharing future in which new value was added to a car by functioning as an automated ridesharing vehicle, picking up and dropping off customers at local destinations when the owner is not using the car, which is between 95% and 98% of the time, according to several studies.
Peer-to-peer (P2P) mobility sharing is not as novel a concept as it seems. Examples of such marketplaces include Turo, Getaround, and Drivy for P2P car rentals, SpinLister for P2P bike rentals, and Boatbound for P2P boat rentals. So, it is not the possibility that is in question, but the probability of whether private owners would purchase an autonomous vehicle and create a business with it. Or would traditional rideshare companies like Uber or Lyft dominate the space? Or would it be OEMs that will supersede everyone by maintaining ownership of autonomous vehicles for their own private rideshares.
When P2P car sharing first began, the concern initially from OEMs was that these marketplaces would cannibalize car sales. However, the consensus appears to be that car sharing has had a positive impact on the market because car sharing offsets the costs of owning a vehicle, meaning there is now more incentive to buy a vehicle if one knows they can easily afford it, said Steve Webb, director of communications and community for Turo. The growth in P2P insurance also adds to the probability of an autonomous P2P market among private individuals.
But there are some skeptics who believe that peer-to-peer autonomous ridesharing will not be as popular.
“For people who purchased own cars, some people will go for it, [but] I don’t expect it to be widespread. People who own their own cars — they keep things in their cars, [and do] not want strangers riding around in their cars,” said Sam Abuelsamid, a senior research analyst, of Navigant Research.
He also added that cost of purchasing an autonomous vehicle may keep private owners at bay, even if autonomous ridesharing is an option.
“I’m less convinced that those vehicles will even be available for purchase. Most will only be made available through ride-hailing services,” Abuelsamid said.
Cost is certainly something that could prevent private ownership. The average American spends around $30,000 on a new car or light truck, According to the National Automobile Dealers Association. And although the price for a level 5 autonomous vehicle is unknown, traditionally cars begin at a base price and additional features impact the cost.
“With any new feature that you add to a vehicle, it impacts the cost, so we need to think about that as well. So, the tech may be ready but if it adds [an extra] $20,000, who is going to buy it?” said the Honda spokesperson.
In which case, it may be major rideshares that take dominate the use of autonomous vehicles.
“Autonomous vehicle fleets will quickly become widespread and will account for the majority of Lyft rides within 5 years,” wrote John Zimmer, co-founder of Lyft, in a Medium post last September.
Lyft previously announced a partnership with General Motors to launch an on-demand network of autonomous vehicles. And Toyota Motor Corp. invested in and partnered with Uber, Volkswagen Group invested in Gett, and BMW AG invested in Scoop Technologies Inc. This all gives credence to the idea that OEMs will not create autonomous vehicle rideshares but instead license or sell them to established rideshares.
However, the always vertically integrating Tesla has a master plan for the upcoming years of the company when it comes to ridesharing with its Tesla Network; currently, the company forbids Tesla owners from using its autonomous driving technology for ride-sharing except for friends and family or the electric car maker’s own car-hailing service.
“You will also be able to add your car to the Tesla shared fleet just by tapping a button on the Tesla phone app and have it generate income for you while you’re at work or on vacation,” said Elon Musk, founder and chief executive in 2016, adding, “Significantly offsetting and at times potentially exceeding the monthly loan or lease cost. This dramatically lowers the true cost of ownership to the point where almost anyone could own a Tesla.”
But even though several automakers have announced plans to have driverless cars on the road in some way by 2021, the overall probability of private autonomous rideshares is far away. Fully automated vehicles are likely to be deployed gradually, for instance with commercial fleets in trucking and shipping. It is likely to be some time before you can own a fully automated vehicle and make money on the road while you earn money.
