Future of Mobility - Autonomous Vehicles

The Jetsons, the 5th Element, and Our Future Mobility: Autonomous Cars, Flying Vehicles, and New Infrastructures

Whenever I think of flying cars, I think of two classics: The Jetsons, and the movie the 5th Element. The Jetsons, with a creative flair to its illustrations, shows a seamless, autonomous flying vehicle mobility experience that’s normal for the Jetson family. The 5th Element has a slight dystopian haze to it, a blend of a New York taxicab in the 90s with an airplane. Never did I think that flying passenger vehicles would come to fruition in my lifetime, but it seems I was wrong. In fact, it’s highly likely that mobility and passenger transport as we know it will change significantly in the coming decades, as long as we anticipate and prepare well in the face of multiple fairly large challenges.

A great business opportunity

Mobility and transport are ongoing hot topics, particularly with the recent IPO from Lyft, the upcoming IPO from Uber, and the price drops from Tesla. There is no doubt an all-out war for electric vehicles and autonomous vehicles, particularly as the price of sensors, batteries, and related technologies start to drop. The war is understandable though, as the mobility market is huge, not just in the US, but in every major city, especially megacities.

The war isn’t just for the market’s “consumers;” it’s also for the strategy and appropriate vertical integration within the market. Vehicles are no longer about design and manufacturing: they now include software, data, connectivity, and some form of self-driving. Companies both large and small are entering into different areas of the autonomous vehicle technology stack, from the likes of Ford, GM, and BMW to local startups out of the University of California.

As various areas of the tech stack develop, the future vision for many stakeholders in the mobility market is “a seamless intermodal transportation experience, ensuring easy access, exemplary in-transit experience, a smooth payment process, and overall customer satisfaction” (see Deloitte’s report). As a consumer and resident of an urban area, that sounds fantastic! Haste the day when I can leave my house and not spend an hour commuting to work with unpredictable traffic, and breathing the pollution from cars and buses. Congestion, commute inefficiency, and poor infrastructures are pain points for millions of urban and sub-urban workers globally. If someone offered me a subscription or on-demand service that would enable me to get from A to B and back again, there is a high chance I would become a customer. In essence, ride-sharing already provides such a service, only the future will include autonomous and electric vehicles, in addition to complete mobility platforms that provide me, the consumer, with the most convenient and cost-effective mobility plan that includes all forms of transport. Most urban dwellers would sign up in an instant to a convenient and efficient mobility platform service, as would suburban dwellers: who wouldn’t skip the stress of traffic, reduce their commute time, and skip negative environmental impact? More than that, commuters could say goodbye to the long lines at the DMV, never again visit a gas or charging station, and not have to worry about when the next fix-the-car bill would appear. A great mobility platform and system presents a huge business opportunity in almost every city worldwide.

However, there is a tension between ridesharing and private ownership: people like their privacy, their own vehicle cleanliness, and storing stuff in their vehicles. As great as an on-demand seamless mobility experience sounds, it doesn’t provide the same benefits of private ownership and this is, in part, where tension lies in the market. There will be different user groups with different preferences: the shared on-demand transport might work great for an event, but you’d rather commute in an electric autonomous vehicle that’s your own. Regardless, the point is that the market is huge, especially if users opt for both private and shared options. “Fleet operators” will emerge and replace the driver-owned model for Uber and Lyft, where operators will own, manage, maintain, and store a fleet of electric, autonomous vehicles. It will be their challenge to figure out how to make supply meet demand and what the minimum viable user utilization would be to operate sustainably.

All of these developments might not reduce congestion, however. If transport becomes easier and cheaper, basic economics says consumers will demand and consume more of it. This could actually put more vehicles on the road! In response to the increasing urban population and congestion problems, there are some companies that have been working on urban air mobility such as flying vehicles – even autonomous ones. It sounds crazy and it feels like a cartoon – like the Jetsons - is coming to life, but companies have already developed a minimum viable product which they are testing! They aren’t quite in line with the cars in the 5th Element – one was described as a bubble on a pair of skis, so perhaps we’re closer to the Jetsons than we think.

Boeing announced Aurora, an autonomous passenger air vehicle (PAV) earlier this year, while Airbus has been developing their “flying taxis:” the Vahana, the Volocopter, and the CityAirbus, electric vertical take-off and land vehicles (eVTOL). What remains to be seen is how such air vehicles would actually go to market: would we command an air ride through a Boeing app or get on an air bus through the Airbus app? Or would airline companies swoop in and rent or buy air vehicles from the two manufacturers? Fleet management is an art and a science (economics included), and isn’t currently a core competency of either manufacturer, but that’s not to say they aren’t looking further down the value chain. Capturing both, early adopters as well as the mass market, is a great business opportunity for transport companies and startups.

While I must admit that I like the idea of taking an air “taxi” to work and skipping traffic, there is still a way to go until such forms of mobility become available. In addition to the actual product technology, cities and aviation authorities need a comprehensive and fundamentally sound infrastructure to manage autonomous flying vehicles. Airport traffic control is a challenge and an art in and of itself: multiply the quantity of traffic, the geographic area, and the complexity of flight paths, and it’s not difficult to see that building a safe and functioning autonomous air traffic management system could be quite the challenge. Nevertheless, Dubai plans to trial autonomous air vehicles in 2020 with a possible launch in 2025; while Singapore is looking at a 2030 target date. Time will tell whether a new mode of transport will help to alleviate congestion challenges or if cargo transport will also need to be resolved until traffic begins to reduce.

A great public challenge

There’s no doubt that autonomous vehicles, especially autonomous air vehicles, are quite forward thinking. However, eVTOLs, PAVs, and AVs actually pose a fairly large challenge to the public – and no, it’s not a matter of safety. Largely, there is a business and an infrastructure problem upon the horizon for the public sector; staying ahead of the game will be crucial.

America generates $200 billion for the public sector through fuel tax, transport tolls, vehicle sales tax, parking, and registration and licensing fees. If drivers subscribe to an on-demand platform and stop buying cars, driving, parking, buying gas, and renewing driver’s licenses, where will the public sector get their $200 billion? The changing nature of the mobility industry poses an interesting business challenge for the public sector. Further, cities will need the infrastructure to support the physical operations, energy consumption, and digital management of automated vehicles, let alone automated air vehicles.

This pulls into question what the role of government should be as the autonomous and air vehicle industries advance and emerge. Clearly, government must create the appropriate policies, laws, and taxes, but they should also be considering ownership of fleet managers, either partial or full. How can cities prepare the appropriate vehicle charging infrastructure that accommodates surges in demand? Will privately held fleets cannibalize public transport systems such that usage drops below the minimum viable quantity? Should the provider of that dreamy seamless mobility experience be a public service, similar to today’s utilities providers? How can congestion be reduced, air quality improved, and negative externalities internalized? In short, time will tell, but it’s certain that governments cannot wait for the technology to arrive as was the case with electric scooters. They have to start planning now to accommodate the future mobility infrastructure.

The public sector isn’t just elected officials and lawmakers. The University of California is a public institution, so it’s also up to us to consider how we might best serve society in these industries. There are a few UC startups in the autonomous vehicle space, notably DeepScale (machine learning solutions) and Civil Maps (HD mapping technology). UC researchers have been pushing the forefront of technology used in autonomous vehicles, including deep neural networks, LIDAR, camera sensors, and perception. Some of our patents and IP are being licensed, and we’re working to translate more into industry.

So what does the future hold?

In many ways, we don’t know what the future will hold. It’s likely that electric, autonomous flying vehicles will begin transporting passengers, largely because the concept already exists with planes and autopilot, and it’s also likely that we’ll transition to electric rather than gas cars over the years. However, whether autonomous vehicles make it onto our streets will be a function of government regulation, human adoption and perception, and how well technology can be developed to deal with unusual road conditions and human drivers who are aggressive or non-compliant to the rules of the road.

More people are moving to and living in cities, which will only increase the demand for a comprehensive, user-friendly, congestion-reducing, less-polluting mobility system and infrastructure. Cities need to plan ahead for a multi-modal transport system that includes trains, buses, bikes, walking, scooters, and in some places, boats, ferries, and flying vehicles. Such systems could greatly benefit those who can’t drive, such as the elderly or the disabled, and increasing the mobility options for these populations is good.

The suburbs will likely follow cities with transport systems, but rural America has a challenge: on-demand electric vehicles are a greater challenge in the middle of the cornfields in Kansas, so we may see vehicle ownership patterns continue in rural areas.

Overall, it seems that while there is a significant technological challenge to successfully create autonomous vehicles, the public sector has perhaps the greatest challenge of all.