The vehicles have grown more powerful and luxurious. The network of roads, highways, and interstates has grown more elaborate and extensive, and more congested. But the basic elements are the same: It’s people driving cars on roads, with transit, cycling, and walking relegated to the margins.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n Today, three technological shifts that could change the transportation system are unfolding in parallel. Let’s review.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Increasing automation is coming to more and more cars these days. Newer luxury vehicles already\u00a0stay within lanes<\/strong><\/a>,\u00a0maintain appropriate distance<\/strong><\/a>\u00a0from the car ahead,\u00a0park themselves<\/strong><\/a>, and even\u00a0valet themselves to you<\/strong><\/a>. Cars are marching through the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration’s\u00a0levels of automation<\/strong><\/a>:<\/p>\n\n\n\n Currently, most new cars have reached level 1, providing the driver with information and warnings; some have reached level 2 in a few specialized contexts, like parking or highway cruising. Soon, level 2 will become more standard and begin bleeding into level 3 (probably via Tesla<\/strong><\/a>).<\/p>\n\n\n\n At the same time, several car manufacturers (and companies like Google, Apple, and Uber) are working directly on level 4, 100 percent autonomous vehicles. Such cars already exist \u2014 Google has test-driven its versions for more than a million miles on public roads \u2014 but they are not quite ready for primetime<\/strong><\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n There’s no consensus on exactly when fully autonomous vehicles will be ready for market, but it is definitely predicted to happen at some point. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Just what socioeconomic changes autonomous vehicles might bring about is anyone’s guess. They would destroy thousands of jobs (think of everyone who drives for a living, including truck drivers). But they would also open up mobility to huge classes of people who, due to age, income, or disability, have been unable to get around independently.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n The US passenger fleet is going to go electric (an argument I have made in several\u00a0previous<\/strong><\/a>\u00a0posts<\/strong><\/a>). Some transit and freight will be electrified, as well. If batteries get substantially better, cheaper, and smaller, and charging infrastructure becomes reliable enough, electrification could even overtake some long-haul or heavy-duty vehicles.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n But the electrification of the personal vehicle fleet has already begun. Bloomberg\u00a0expects<\/strong><\/a>\u00a0fully electric vehicles to reach 35 percent of global new car sales by 2040.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n Internal combustion engine (ICE) vehicles and electric vehicles are different in ways that current comparisons tend to underplay. I like to quote this passage from a book called\u00a0Reinventing the Automobile: Personal Urban Mobility for the 21st Century:<\/strong><\/a><\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n A traditional [ICE] car requires elaborate systems of reservoirs, tubes, valves, and pumps to distribute the gasoline, oil, water, air, and exhaust gases, but a battery-electric automobile replaces most of these complicated distribution systems with wires connecting the batteries to the wheels.<\/p><\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n That’s all you really need for an EV: batteries, wheels (which contain electric motors), and wires.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n Well, technically you need wheels, a battery, a platform for the driver to stand or sit on, and, unless the car is self-driving, some sort of interface to control the vehicle (steering wheel, joystick, touchscreen, what have you). What you build around those simple core components can vary based on the intended use of the vehicle.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n Eventually, one could envision most daily travel needs being met by cheap battery-powered vehicles like Segway-style walkers, electric bikes or scooters, or one- or two-person urban pod cars, with long-distance travel reserved for specialized vehicles.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The second development radically expanding the prospects for electric vehicles is the internet and mobile connectivity<\/strong>, which allows the firmware and software controlling electric vehicles (and thus their performance) to continually improve \u2014 Tesla is already demonstrating this as well. Eventually, electric cars will be like big mobile iPhones with wheels. The hardware will mostly be boring, except for the improving batteries and charging. <\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n But that’s dreamy future talk. What’s happening now is that electric cars are rapidly\u00a0coming down the cost curve<\/a>\u00a0and competing with ICE vehicles on a total cost of ownership basis in\u00a0more and more places<\/a>.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n How will these two ongoing technological revolutions mix?<\/strong> What will it look like when all those electric vehicles are also\u00a0smart<\/em>, i.e., aware of their surroundings, in wireless communication with other vehicles, and capable of navigating independently?<\/p>\n\n\n\n One possibility it opens up is an end to, or at least a vast reduction in the need for, personal vehicle ownership. <\/strong>Instead, transportation could become almost exclusively a\u00a0service<\/em>, as it is now in the case of taxis, Uber\/Lyft, and good old-fashioned mass transit.<\/p>\n\n\n\n If you could order up an autonomous electric vehicle (AEV) from a shared fleet with a click of your smartphone \u2014 a vehicle appropriately sized to the nature and distance of your trip \u2014 you wouldn’t have much incentive to take on the cost and responsibilities of owning a car.1) Autonomous (self-driving) vehicles<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
![\"autonomous-vehicle.0.png\"](\"https:\/\/cdn1.vox-cdn.com\/thumbor\/WQl48BPZLXu9Tb7tuuBPkIIlSGY=\/900x0\/cdn2.vox-cdn.com\/uploads\/chorus_asset\/file\/6458965\/autonomous-vehicle.0.png\")
<\/figure>\n\n\n\n2) Vehicle electrification<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
1 + 2) Autonomous electric vehicles<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
Shared fleets could reduce the total number of vehicles on the road, even if they also increase demand for transportation services.<\/p>\n\n\n\n