Standing in the Threshold of A New Era

Intel purchased Mobileye, a rather small Israeli company specialising in devising vision systems for cars and trucks, for a whooping price of $15.3 billion.

I wish to share with you a fascinating article published in the De Marker. The article was written by one of the most important players in Israeli economy, Dr Shmuel Harlap. https://www.bloomberg.com/research/stocks/private/person.asp?personId=242448915&privcapId=242316746&previousCapId=242316746&previousTitle=Nyotron%20Information%20Security%20Ltd.

Harlap argues that we are at the beginning of a new era, Echo-system of electric vehicles, autonomous and collaborative. The winners among automakers and technology companies will share global travel revenues of more than 16 trillion miles a year. Revenues will be generated not only from fares but also, and perhaps primarily, from passengers’ productivity while driving.

Is this the End of the Internal Combustion Engine?

If you ask the members of the Bundesrat, the upper house of the German parliament, the response will be positive. They are discussing a Members' Bill that would oblige German car manufacturers to stop the production of traditional piston engines in 2030. This means a complete transition to power vehicles using electric motors. Meanwhile, Volkswagen announced the dismissal of 30,000 employees by 2022: a sharp transition from manufacturing conventional vehicles, running on petrol and diesel, focusing on electric vehicles.

In the United States, three manufacturers of electric vehicles are growing in power: Tesla, Lucid and Faraday. General Motors and the Japanese Nissan also entered the market of electric cars while other manufacturers convert production lines to design electric vehicles. Therefore, we can assume that the electric propulsion will gradually replace the internal combustion engine.

Autonomous Vehicles

Autonomous vehicles are currently in the second phase development. Integrated autonomous systems in vehicles are controlled by human drivers and advanced safety measures are used. According to the currently available forecasts, already in 2021 we will reach the third phase, called "Eyes Off", which will be completely autonomous driving on the road long-distance charges but still require a human driver observation of urban spaces.

The fourth phase in the development of autonomous vehicles, "Mind Off", and the fifth phase, "Driver Off", will arrive later. The fourth phase will still have pedal car and driver, but later the driver and the pedals will disappear. Autonomous cars will develop to such a level that road accidents will become a rare occurrence.

Cooperative Transport

The battle between the drivers of private taxis and Uber and its likes as part of the growing cooperative economy is essentially a battle between the old economy and the new economy. The economic battle has already been decided in New York. The market value of a license to operate a taxi has dropped from $1.5 million in 2013 to $500,000 in 2016.

Source in Hebrew: https://www.themarker.com/magazine/1.3617354