Self-Driving Cars: When do we get the warp drives?

Source: http://www.extremetech.com/

He was waiting outside the school for his ride back home after cross country practice that has left him just wanting to sit down, since he had been running for what felt like 3 hours straight. As he saw his ride start to drive up, he had a sigh of relief as it slowed to a halt almost right in front of him. He walked over and took a seat in the front seat as he opened his phone to Uber app to tell it to send him home. Although this feels as though it is a idea in some far off future, it is likely only about 5 to 10 years away. This change will be a huge help towards society and their ability to have access to transportation.


To begin, in an article in the New York Times titled Ford Promises Fleet of Driverless Cars by 2021, it talks about how Ford’s chief engineer back in August made the claim that by the year 2021, Ford will be mass producing Driverless cars. This statement lead to a mix of reactions, some who were happy and curious about the prospect of the driverless car, but it also stirred the stomachs of those who are afraid of that loss of control over the car. This fear of the new is to be expected for those who feel a lack of trust in something new, but the assuring statement by the engineer is that these vehicles would be sold to the public but would mainly be used for the use of their own ride-hailing service. This change would have huge effects to the whole dynamic of the auto company and how much they would produce and what the consumer would do with their money.


Ford is already starting to double the amount of people they have hired at one of their centers, so this could help stimulate the economy. As well, it would lead to the consumer spending less because the vehicles would be less prone to accidents. It would also lead to less cars being purchased due to the accessibility to cheap taxi’s via services such as Uber and Ford. All of this leads to the consumer having an all around better experience with transportation because there would never be problems with the user having a lack of access because as long as they have some form of phone, they could easily call or open an number of apps to get anywhere they need.


For the producer, this would initially have problems for them, since they would have a steep loss in sales due to the lack in the consumer need to purchase the cars after having one. Though in the long run, they would end up working it and making the money they lost in other place back through any number of ways, whether that be through a ride-sharing service or as they have currently, by showing the next model as status symbol which would lead to the prices rising again.


In the end, it can be concluded that the expansion of self-driving cars in unstoppable at this point and that it will help us in many facets of our lives. But, even though there are many compelling reasons to why these devices will help you, there will always be someone who wants to stop it for one reason or another. And that divide is one that can never be remove, but that’s OK, because even it can’t, they will still enjoy the benefit of improved traffic.

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