As I (and many others) have explained many times (recently here), the business/economic case for transitioning to much smarter, cleaner more efficient water, food, transportation and energy systems is so overwhelming today, that change is happening with or without politicians or climate-change believers. The catalyst is not the environment, but rather economic efficiency and the math of full cost accounting.
As highlighted in The future of transportation and the death of big oil and big auto, a new 77 page report, with great graphics available here: Rethinking Transportation 2020-2030: The disruption of transportation and the death of the internal combustion vehicle and oil industries.
Co-author Tony Seba projects that from the day autonomous vehicles (AVs) are approved for public roads it will take ten years for 95% of road travel to be autonomous, electric and shared. This will be disrupt individual vehicle ownership, internal combustion engine automobiles and oil producers. See more here: If you can’t compete at $25 a barrel, you are out!
For those who think transportation disruption cannot happen within 10 years, Seba reminds that Uber did not yet exist in 2008 and yet today it has more bookings than the entire US taxi industry.
This is all about on-demand, relaxing, efficient transportation without the stress and responsibility or the negative cash flow of maintaining individual vehicles. Seba explains the math:
“…electric autonomous vehicles operating in fleets and on demand, will be ten times cheaper than buying a new car. Every time there has been a factor of ten difference in cost, in any product or service in history, there has been a disruption. People are going to stop buying cars. We spend around 10 000 dollars a year on car ownership. We will be able to get the same level of transportation for 1000–2000 dollar. It makes rational economic sense to change your behavior. People will save 7, 8 or 9000 dollars. Who would not want to do that? Also, even if you own a car that is already paid off, so that all you need to do is to pay for petrol, maintenance and operating costs, that is still going to be 2-4 times more expensive than transport as a service. So even if somebody gives you a car for free, the running costs will be 2-4 times more expensive than transport as a service. This means that no one will buy a new car, and those who own a car, once they get rid of their car, they are not going to buy a new one, because at that point the differential in cost will increase. The cost of transportation as a service will keep going down and the cars for private ownership will keep going up. So over time it will make even more sense to get rid of your car and get into transport as a service.”
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