If you are into the automotive industry, the most common questions put forth include “why are we going to have flying cars?” and “when will self-driving cars be a reality?”. Well, let’s not crack into laughter on the flying cars question, because we are genuinely quite close to autonomous vehicles. And let’s face it, like any other tech, with autonomous vehicles too, an innumerable businesses are expected to take a hit worldwide.
If we take the United States for instance, the people are in love with mid-size SUVs right now, and naming a few, the 2021 BMW X5 falls into the high-end side of the segment, while the recently updated 2021 Nissan Rogue is quite affordable. Both of them are extremely popular in their own niches, and appeal to hearts and minds of almost all age-groups.
In both the above examples, the maximum interference of artificial intelligence for driving these cars include driver-assistance technologies like lane keeping assist, or the most popular of these, advanced cruise control, or adaptive cruise control, as it is commonly referred to, by most of the manufacturers. Brands like General Motors and Tesla lead the race to autonomous vehicles. Yet again, the same question arises, what will be the impact of autonomous vehicles on various businesses?
Yes, we had the same questions pricking us for some time, but let’s crack the case this time. Let’s talk about the business that will bloom or fade with autonomous vehicles being a major reality.
Computer Science and Technology
The education sector is one of the most important industries all around the world. Every year, millions of students and scholars complete their education and contribute their part towards the world. But you’d be thinking, how will education and “Computer science” have any relation?
Yes, computer science will be the most demanding subject of all time, it will be one of the biggest fields to contribute and impact driverless cars with technology and the computer industry. With millions of vehicles projected to be on the roads in just a decade, we’ll need skilled identities to do research, run tests, resolve issues, troubleshoot, and more.
In current scenarios, engineers and computer scientists have thrived to level 3 or Semi-autonomy. Modern cars are equipped with driver assistance. But to pace up computer scientists will have to brainstorm about new self-driving technologies, and thus the field of technology and computer science will be overwhelmed with breakthroughs and popularity over other fields of education.
Software companies and their sharpest minds will amend programs for such autonomous vehicles, create software updates and patches, secure them, collect and analyze the data, and keep everything running smoothly. While the automobile design and production field will also require some clever head-scratching brains to develop the most efficient, practical, and affordable entities to make remarkable progress in the future.
Hospitality Industry
When autonomous vehicles will be prevalent, why would someone require roadside motels to take a break? Hear us out, with autonomous vehicles drivers will have the capability to let the artificial intelligence take over, while the drivers and others could take a nap.
If you own something plush and opulent like the state-of-the-art Rolls-Royce Cullinan, motels would look extravagant and squander of both time and money. Long-routes would not require the drivers or the occupants to take a break, even the most practical buys offer supportive seatings. With autonomous cars on the rise, people would be able to commit to longer routes, even the farthest destinations, and never sweat about pre-booking something to take a nap in.
But looking on the other side of the coin, the same industry could see a boost. With autonomous cars, people would be less worried about driving for long miles, and enjoy the journey, and even take a break to stitch some unforgettable memories. More people will get encouraged to take more trips, skip on the hefty expenses of airlines and other means of transport, and commute large distances in their personal vehicle itself.
Aviation Industry
If you are still head-scratching on this one, let us give you the picture of the vision when autonomous cars will take over the conventional vehicle concept. Drivers and tour-enthusiasts will prefer to cover great distances in their personal vehicles.
For some, the luxurious and opulent cabins of their cars would be more prominent in comfort than the airline seats. Instead of buckling up to fly-off, autonomous cars can save significant charges as the future technology can be safely predicted to be more efficient than the current cars.
This would mean, flight journeys would be the pick of personalities with the faith in “Time is money” saying. This lesser percentage of passengers will still prefer flights over closed cabins and trust the artificial intelligence to drive them to their destinations intact.
Not only this, but even manufacturers can learn a lot from the Aviation industry. Over the past few decades, the aviation industry has resolved quite a lot of issues that have led to an impeccable safety record and high level of trust among passengers. In that way, aviation lights the path for autonomous vehicles.
Gas Stations and Convenience Stores
Gas stations and convenience have inter-dependence on each other. Millions of car drivers catch a break, fill their drive, and shop for snacks in the convenience store, to munch till the fuel tank gets full.
With autonomous cars getting into a full-fledged technology, the cars would have reduced fueling time, trips would be planned, and hence the convenience store might see a drop in customers. With autonomous cars, it might be possible that gas stations would get even more advanced, such that the cars would be able to refuel themselves (both gas and electric cars). This would mean that the occupants inside won’t need to step out for anything.
The gas station could also get more customers with electric cars needing more time to recharge. Cars would be able to plan the stops and be more efficient, yet their longer charging time would also make the convenience stores the best way to kill such time.
Car Dealerships
We have seen many tech giants like Google and more, spend millions on splendid autonomous technologies. This means the future self-driving cars won’t be affordable for the common crowd until the prices are cut effectively. Until autonomous cars are affordable, car dealerships won’t have a big crowd rushing to them to buy such advanced cars. And driverless cars won’t require owning them, why buy them when you can easily lend or hire one?
With this principle, many commuters would prefer ordering an autonomous taxi, than owning and maintaining a car by themselves. Even conventional cars won’t remain a practical buy for consumers that would be finding a car more expensive than taking a ride in such advanced vehicles.
Rideshares and Taxis
We just talked about how car dealerships might not see a peak in sales, but ride-sharing and taxis could become a proficient business in the age of autonomous vehicles. These cars would easily drive themselves, pick the commuters, navigate them to their destinations. These cars would save fuel costs, maintenance charges, and more for the commuters.
But from the business point of view, autonomous cars would result in more efficiency as accidents would curb to negligible, save driver’s costs (being driverless cars), and more. Autonomous cars would also diagnose themselves, book maintenance and repairs to prevent any major bills or breakdowns.
Freight and Hauling
In the future, cars won’t need drivers, and autonomous vehicles would impact the freight and hauling business. Currently, roads are heavily crowded with big lorries and other hauling trucks, and they are driven by experienced drivers, but in the end, they are human beings. They require sleep, rest, food, and other reasons to take a break from driving these massive trucks.
But with autonomous vehicles, drivers would be replaced by artificial intelligence, sensors, and other technologies that would be more effective than human drivers. They would require almost no breaks and would be less prone to accidents or other losses than the human drivers have been burdened by for centuries.
Self-driving cars would be more efficient as they would be able to navigate themselves to destinations in the most cost-effective manner. So why hire human drivers when technology can haul loads through states and further.
Parking
With roads getting crowded with millions of vehicles, drivers have always sweat hard to find a parking spot for their vehicles. But as autonomous vehicles become an actuality, parking spots would be non-essential. Self-driving cars could drive around the spot until their masters are done with their businesses.
But the same business could boost up as autonomous cars would park themselves on their own and with ease. So, drivers would just step out and head to their stops, while their cars could park themselves. And when the owners are done with their work, their ride would reach them, pick them up, remove the hassle to find or even remember the parking spots.
Though autonomous cars are the most anticipated technology in the automotive industry, it would still require a decade to fine-tune this tech. And it would be thrilling to head towards a safer and effective manner to transport with self-driving cars.