time. Very few people would still own a car privately, except for the hobbyists among us. Cars become increasingly comparable with public transportation. Car manufacturers are no longer
scrutinised by their shareholders on how many cars they have sold in a given year, but rather on how many miles they have sold. Entire fleets of cars are constantly running through the city and can be hailed by any- one who’s in need. These cars are equipped with the latest and greatest technologies and will autonomously bring you to your destination, while you are getting some work done in the car. This also not too hard to imag-
ine and, perhaps, not as far away in the future as you might think. Tesla recently announced that every car
rolling out of the factory today has all the necessary hardware on board to be able to drive fully autonomously. To prepare the system, each and every Tesla car on the road will use the coming two years to learn from real life situations and adjust its algorithms accordingly. Because thousands upon thousands of Teslas are sharing these experiences with each other, the combined experience makes the car itself a better driver than any person alive. A great example of this is hailing
of taxi from apps that have become ingrained into our everyday life very quickly. In a matter of only a few years the likes of Uber have spread across the entire globe with their ride-hailing apps. Tesla will soon introduce their Tesla Network, which completes the picture of self-driving
electric vehicles that can be hailed via an app.
SCARY? Every device connected to the Internet? Driverless cars? Energy trading with neighbours? It may sound scary and, to a certain degree, rightfully so. As we are increasing the connectivity in our lives we are los- ing more of our privacy. Not only that, we are introducing more and more Artificial Intelligence (AI). AI can be our friend and help us to improve our standards of living, but as Elon Musk and Prof Stephen Hawking often point out, can also threaten our very existence. As much as I am an engi- neer and fan of technology, I think they have a valid point. We as the human species will need to decide collectively to what extent we are willing to give up our privacy as well as our control over the machines we use. The day that AI reaches human- level intelligence may well be the last day as we know it, for we have never experienced life on earth with a being that is smarter than ourselves and we have no way of knowing what that being would do so we better be extremely careful with this. I’d like to end with a positive note
here. The development towards smart cities means there will be an enormous amount of jobs created to get there. If we get it right, it results in a quality of life much better than it is today and hopefully with welfare much better spread across the globe. Electric vehicles are just one cog in the machine.
Car manufacturers will no longer
be scrutinised by their shareholders on how many cars they have sold in a given year, but rather on how many miles they have sold
FYI
Sander Van Der Veen is Country Manager, UK, for The New Motion
www.thenewmotion.co.uk
s.vanderveen@
thenewmotion.co.uk
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Mobility, Multiodality and Traffic Efficiency
ELECTRIC VEHICLES/INTERNET OF THINGS
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