Will technology make owning a car obsolete?

Tuesday, I got a Viber message about the dawn of the exponential age and predictions of the future by Dr. Robert Goldman, an anti-aging and sports medicine expert who has received a lot of accolades that had me convinced that he is credible.

He started with the disintegration of Kodak, once one of the biggest companies in the world, which in a span of 10 years became obsolete due to the coming of the digital age.

He called it the exponential age or the 4th industrial evolution.

Software against hardware

Goldman cited software superstars Uber and Airbnb which, even without actual ownership of any hard assets, have become the biggest players in their respective industries.

On the same note, artificial intelligence has started to take over traditional human diagnostics with greater precision and speed. This is the case of IBM Watson which now has applications in both medical, legal and research fields.

Smartphones will be the gateway for technological innovations such as futuristic medical diagnosis and laboratory analysis similar to the Tricorder used in Star Trek or maybe the blood analyzing phone which Qui-Gon Jin used to test Anakin’s midi-chlorian count.

Accessibility to smartphones is high even in poor countries. Goldman predicts that in 2020, 70 percent of humans will own one.

He also said that it would be a primary educational tool, making world-class education available to everyone.

He predicted the “soon to be standard” 3D scanning capability of the smartphone, coupled with the push to mainstream 3D printers, whose cost has dramatically gone down from $18,000 to $400.

People would start scanning their feet and printing their own shoes in their own home.

3D printing is becoming the go-to for manufacturing. In China, a company called Win Sun has built a six-storey building via 3D printing using inks made from a mixture of glass fiber, steel, cement, hardening agents and recycled construction waste, as reported by Archdaily.com.

Goldman said spare airplane parts and spare space station parts are already being 3D-printed for convenience and efficiency.

Autonomous cars

“In 2018, the first self-driving cars will appear for the public. Around 2020, the complete industry will start to be disrupted. You don’t want to own a car anymore. You will call a car with your phone, it will show up at your location and drive you to your destination. You will not need to park it, you only pay for the driven distance and can be productive while driving. Our kids will never get a driver’s license and will never own a car,” Goldman wrote.

At this point, I was already impressed with talking cars, cars connected with your smartphone, and cars with self-park capabilities. The foundation of this technology is already in the midst.

Uber might be the homo sapien version while “self-drive cars on call” will be homo sapien’s superior.

Money Inc. reports that there are five companies that are already developing self-driving technology including Google using Toyota Prius and Lexus models.

If these events happen, Goldman predicts that this will change cities due to less demand for parking space and will end up making those spaces into parks.

There would also be fewer accidents worldwide. He said that at this time, we have one accident every 100,000 km; with this technology, it will drop to one accident for 10 million kilometers.

This is the upside of his predictions: who wouldn’t want more parks and fewer accidents?

The bad side is that he predicts that most car and insurance companies will go bankrupt, resulting in lots of people losing their jobs.

Tesla and Apple are now in the race to creating their autonomous cars. Cars running with no human error would result to a decline in insurance needs.

Solar will become the major source of electricity. Goldman mentioned that there have been more solar energy facilities installed worldwide than fossil last year.

This will result in solar electricity being so cheap that electric cars will be mainstream by 2020.

Our technology today

As mentioned, we are already on the brink of this revolution. Autoblog has cited Apple CarPlay as one of the most important technological products last year.

Apple CarPlay’s integration of the iPhone and car infotainment system automatically gives the car an upgrade with all the apps available on the owner’s iPhone.

This is a big step from the music playing and phone connectivity we are experiencing today.

Tesla has been creating electric, performance and high-tech vehicles that look good, giving traditional car companies a run for their money.

The anticipated Tesla Model 3, with extended driving range and a premium feel, is the most anticipated electric car in history with over 400,000 cars on pre-order.

So how will this affect us?

One of the stumbling blocks I see is that people might have a hard time letting go of their vehicles for sentimental reasons.

Also, cars are seen as a status symbol not only in the Philippines but also all over the world.

However, membership to a “car on call” service that caters to more high-end car models has its own charm.

Infrastructure will also be a problem in rural areas where it will not be a priority for companies to provide services.

On-call vehicles will be urban-centric, where traffic and congestion is indeed a problem; this revolution would be a welcome change.

Like everything else, it presents both an advantage and a disadvantage. It might be the solution for all the traffic and pollution problems.

The probability of the predictions is high. The only problem is how car enthusiasts will get their high every time they step on the accelerator pedal.