Baby, We Won’t Drive Our Cars: The Future Of Automotive Transportation

Earlier this summer, Trinity had the pleasure of hosting a Transportation Tech dinner with some of the brightest minds in the space, including Uber’s lead data scientist, Lyft’s leader of operations strategy, RelayRides’ head of marketing, and the CEOs of ZIRX, MileIQ, Chariot, and Automatic.

The discussion can be summed up in large part by one unifying insight:

“Transportation tech is not only changing how we get from A to B, it’s fundamentally altering the underlying infrastructure of our cities.”

This observation led to several bold predictions on what the future of transportation holds in store.  Here’s a list of the Top 5:

• Uber will eventually build a centrally-controlled, all-electric, autonomous vehicle fleet
• New modes of transit with dynamic routing will reduce overall vehicle ownership and alter urban development patterns
• Gas stations will disappear due to reduced vehicle ownership and electrification, forcing a restructuring of our gas distribution system
• The commercial parking industry will consolidate and decline, disrupted by on-demand parking models like ZIRX that aggregate demand
• Connected car startups will bring increasing amounts of vehicle data online leading to safer, cheaper, and more efficient transportation

The 21^st century, where the confluence of ridesharing, electrification, connected cars, and autonomous vehicles promise to give rise to an entirely new transportation paradigm.  Together, these factors are likely to reduce car ownership, consolidate fueling and parking infrastructure, and lead to a more dynamic, interconnected transit system capable of supporting increasingly dense populations in urban centers.  This transition will create opportunities for entrepreneurs with bright ideas for how to improve transportation on multiple dimensions.

Read more: http://techcrunch.com/2015/08/29/baby-we-wont-drive-our-cars-the-future-of-automotive-transportation/