Self-driving car market worth trillions by 2030?

As the world’s biggest players in IT and the car makers dive frantically into self-driving cars, a new report estimates this market will grow to an astonishing $2.6 trillion annually within 15 years.

The site Gas2.org reports the startling growth prospects for self-driving cars revealed in a new Mogran Stanley report led by Katy Huberty.

Her research team estimates that the global shared mobility market will reach $$2.6 trillion annually by 2030.

Much of what’s superficially driving this market is disruptive technology and business models of companies like Uber and Lyft. These companies have muscled into the traditional taxi market in big cities worldwide and shown a thriving willingness for tech savvy citizens to pay for new types of services.

More importantly, Uber’s disruptive approach has broken open the car-buying paradigm in big cities, and exposed an increasing desire by urban dwellers to reduce vehicle ownership or skip it all together. And as individual car ownership is expected to wane, this will be countered by a corresponding rise in vehicles sold to shared mobility networks.

Demand seems strong – but trillions?

Earlier this spring, Uber’s CEO boldly pronounced that if Tesla developed an autonomous car by 2020 Uber would by the entire manufacturing run. Following this Tesla guru Elon Musk coyly hinted that electric car company may be poised to enter into the race to develop self-driving cars.

Another new contender in the car market is Apple, which invested $1 billion in Didi Chuxing, a Chinese ride hailing service. Not only will that deal allow Apple to integrate its existing technology in a new market, but it will provide vital data on consumer behavior in China, a market that analysts predict will be one of the most open to switching to autonomous vehicles.

This seismic market shift has traditional automakers scrambling to catch up to the drastically changing technology and consumer landscape.

Volkswagen recently announced that it would focus more of its resources on self-driving and electric cars, while pumping $300 million into Israeli firm Gett.

Not to be outdone, General Motors recently acquired Cruise Automation for $1 billion and invested an additional $500 million into Lyft.

Add to this Chrysler teaming up with Google self-driving minivans and BMW’s refocusing its “i” division toward developing autonomous car technology.

And with such huge players from both the IT world and the automaking universe gambling big, it’s clear there will be massive winners and losers as the technology shakes out. So strap in, it’s going to be one wild ride.

Will elderly and disabled gain most from autonomous cars?

The future of autonomous vehicles might give millions of elderly and disabled citizens a chance at driving, but new draft regulations released in December by the state of California point to a long battle for fully driverless cars on the road.

Google’s director of the self-driving project, Chris Urmson, said he was disappointed in the draft regulations, which state that the driver must be able to control the car at all times. This is similar to the current laws on autonomous vehicles, which Tesla have already implemented.

Google will still be able to test its vehicles on driverless mode, but a driver is still required to sit in the vehicle. That is a low blow for the company, which might have been hoping for a bit of leeway this year as it prepares to commercialize its self-driving project.

Several organized groups called for a relaxation in the laws and a way for disabled people to control autonomous cars. “If there’s an autonomous car, there needs to be a means by which a blind person can operate that car as well,” said Parnell Diggs, board member of the National Federation of the Blind to Medill.

“It would behoove the auto industry to certainly keep the elderly and the disabled in mind, as a growing proportion of the American population are aging baby boomers,” said Kenneth Jon, researcher at the Texas A&M Transportation Institute.

Autonomous cars can take down obstacles

Autonomous cars remove a lot of the issues some elderly people have in cars, like short sight and slow reactions. All of these improvements are for nought however, if regulations maintain that a driver needs to be inside the car and able to take command at all times.

Full autonomy might not come until 2020, according to Baidu, the Chinese company that is currently working on self-driving cars in Silicon Valley. Others, like Tesla, General Motors, and the PSA Group have similar predictions on when the market will be ready for driverless cars.

Until then, it looks like we’re stuck with highway self-driving and self-parking features coming to more cars.

Baidu building a self-driving team in Silicon Valley

The Chinese web search giant Baidu is looking to expand its autonomous car program to the United States by bringing a 100-person team to Silicon Valley. This puts it in the same space – and now, same neighborhood – as its closest American equivalent, Google.

Baidu isn’t a household name here in the United States, but in China, it is the go-to search engine for over 80% of its 1.35 billion citizens. It was also the first Chinese company to be listed on the NASDAQ-100 index, making it an easy company to compare to Google.

Like Google, Baidu has been branching out in recent years to social networking, mobile operating systems, and even self-driving cars.

Baidu says the Silicon Valley team will be known as Autonomous Driving Unit-US, or ADU-US. It will focus on areas integral to self-driving car development, including planning, perception, control and systems. ADU-US will work alongside Baidu’s existing Silicon Valley-based teams, including Baidu Research.

Earlier this month, Tesla opened its doors to receive pre-orders for its yet-to-be-unveiled Model 3. It received over 325,000 pro-orders – many of which were made sight unseen – in just a few days. One of the primary drivers of interest in this vehicle was Tesla’s self-driving mode that enables you to take your hands off the wheel and enjoy the ride while the car changes lanes, turns, and navigates you to where you want to go.

With interest in autonomous vehicles this high, it’s no surprise that Baidu has decided to jump in and develop its own platform that it can then partner with manufacturers like BMW to bring to market.

“Baidu is fully committed to making self-driving cars a reality,” said Jing Wang, SVP of Baidu and General Manager of Baidu’s Autonomous Driving Unit. “Autonomous vehicles will save lives and make transportation more efficient. Baidu’s Silicon Valley car team will play a significant role in building the car of the future.”

Detroit Auto Show to launch an all-autonomous spin-off in 2017

After swamping the Detroit Auto Show for the past two years, event directors have decided to debut an autonomous spin-off show in 2017, called AutoMobili-D.

The event will be held in Cobo Center Atrium in Detroit, Michigan on Jan 8, according toBoston Free Press. The atrium offers a 120,000 square-foot space and indoor test track for manufacturers to preview self-driving capabilities to industry experts and fans of the motor companies in a controlled environment.

See Also: Volvo tests self-driving cars in China and Sweden

“AutoMobili-D will provide an international look at the ever-changing world of consumer mobility and the ecosystem of companies and innovations that are driving this exciting transformation,” said Sam Slaughter, 2017 NAIAS chairman. “AutoMobili-D will provide the ideal platform for B2B networking and thought-provoking demonstrations.”

The spin-off event comes at a time where auto shows are struggling to maintain a powerful spot in the industry. Regular manufacturers are starting to prefer livestreaming or virtual reality announcements to spending loads on a spot at an auto show. Autonomous cars are in a different zone however, as manufacturers preview one or two features instead of an entire car at auto events. Previews require test drivers and a lot of space, two things auto shows have in spades.

Detroit has always been the go-to auto show

“Just as NAIAS has served as the leading global venue for automakers to debut brand-defining vehicles, AutoMobili-D will be the go-to setting for automakers, suppliers and startups alike to unveil advanced technologies and initiatives that will move the transportation industry into the next century,” said Slaughter.

Next year, we might see the first iterations of “mind-off” autonomous cars, which require minimal human interaction to drive. We are already seeing NuTonomy potentially launch a taxi service in Singapore, Baidu preparing to launch a similar service in China, and Google setting their sights on driverless software on the roads by 2018.

Add to that General Motors, Ford, Chrysler, and Citroën all working on autonomous vehicles, and the Detroit autonomous show looks to be a packed event full of startups and big name brands.