The world is transitioning to a robotaxi and robobus future within 5 to ten years. This is where almost all commuting and transportation is based upon operationally cheaper self-driving ride sharing electric vehicles. There will still be a tiny amount of luxury personal car use. However, getting to and from work will be in self-driving robotaxi which will be four to ten times cheaper per mile than car ownership.
Tesla, Mercedes and others have superior car performance and various other features and brand aspects which matter in a world of car ownership.
For Taxi or Uber, people do not care the brand of the car that has come to give me a ride. If the vehicle has promptly responded to my request then people will get in the vehicle. The fleet owner of Taxis is selecting the vehicles based upon the operating costs of the cars.
For airplanes, people have shown that they are willing to sacrifice comfort for a lower ticket price. The comfort of the seats and the conditions in the plane are lower priorities.
The robotaxis will be cars that last for 2 million miles and have lower operating costs. The interior seats will occasionally be swapped out or reupholstered. There will be no performance competition.
Electric vehicles are already cheaper to operate so the robotaxis will be electric.
There will be niche robolimos. The number of robolimos will be like the limo to taxi ratio today.
The winners will be the number one and number two robotaxi fleet operators.
The producers of vehicles will be the caterpiller or the Toyota. It will be reliability of vehicle, production quality and production efficiency. It will be the Toyota (or a company that displaces Toyota) that will be the reliable and high-quality maker of volume production.
No one cares who makes the semi-truck today. The vehicles are made for a purpose but there are dominant and profitable makers of semi-trucks.
Brian Wang is a Futurist Thought Leader and a popular Science blogger with 1 million readers per month. His blog Nextbigfuture.com is ranked #1 Science News Blog. It covers many disruptive technology and trends including Space, Robotics, Artificial Intelligence, Medicine, Anti-aging Biotechnology, and Nanotechnology.
Known for identifying cutting edge technologies, he is currently a Co-Founder of a startup and fundraiser for high potential early-stage companies. He is the Head of Research for Allocations for deep technology investments and an Angel Investor at Space Angels.
A frequent speaker at corporations, he has been a TEDx speaker, a Singularity University speaker and guest at numerous interviews for radio and podcasts. He is open to public speaking and advising engagements.