Let's not forget that by the time this technology is widely adopted a lot or dare I say, the majority of jobs will be done by robots and algorithms. There won't be long commutes to non existent jobs.
People have been saying this for decades, centuries almost. All mechanisation/automation ever does is move jobs. A hundred years ago, people worked in mills and mines, now they do customer sevice, programming, service etc, in another hundred years who knows, maybe we'll be able to have more teachers, artists, inventors, nurses etc even if people dont need to work anymore they will still want to go places for leisure. But we aren't talking that long anyway. Look at the internet. In about 10-15 years it went from "what the fuck is the internet?" to "I cant believe there is no fucking internet here!".
Once there is the option for browsing the internet on the highway (instead of concentrating on traffic) on that boring drive to visit your Mother/Grandmother/Brother/Sister or whatever, or to just send the pod to pick up your Auntie from the airport or to go out and get drunk and have the pod take you home and you can even just doze off in it. Then driving yourself will quickly seem "fucking stupid".
I consider this very unlikely. People usually speculate videly about Apple's product development and then it turns out to be almost nothing spectacular. My guess is that it would be a sort of iPad for the car that also work as a dashboard and have some minor car control abilities.
The whole concept of pod cars seem far fetched and nothing a sane business consultant would recommend looking into. I also cannot see this working for family trips or (most alarmingly) BMX roadtrips
If it was just an "add on" for existing cars then there wouldn't be the same need to hire shit loads of automotive engineers.
Why would this not work for family trips? No reason the pod cant be big enough for a whole family or group of riders, and no reason you cant hire a second trolley to follow you around with a cargo pod mounted in the same way you would hire a Uhaul truck or trailer.
I can see a subscription based self driving car thing coming around. Pay a monthly fee, get a car near/at your home. Get driven to work, decide to go for a beer, end up in a different city, get a car back home. It doesn't matter that its a different car because they're all the same.
Sure there will be some market for a taxi version like Google are working on, but people have got used to their home comforts in their own car. People want a box of tissues, blanket, sweets, phone charger, spare shoes, a 9mm etc on hand without actually carrying all that crap around with them.
Suppose Apple launched this tomorrow.
Basic pods start at $10k and go up to $50k or even $100k for a sumptuously appointed 6 seater. No insurance, tax servicing or licence needed. Travel is $0.25/mile. OR you can pay a monthly fee like you do for a phone, say $500 a month (for a base model) with a basic mileage allowance of 800 miles or something.
Are you really saying that they wouldn't have people queuing up? And the profit on something like this would be staggering. With a high rate of utilisation on trolleys and pods being very simple to produce they could easily have a 100% mark-up which would make the traditional car industry look very poor.
G.
Topic: Apple's iCar or whatever.. (Read 35579 times)
