Correspondent Mark send in these comments on the post below re Autonomous Cars. I thought it was important and deserved to be given the light of day:
If we use the 53,000 number, if we base it on worldwide cars sales for 2016 of between 77 and 88 million ( the statistics vary) then we’re looking at anywhere from 6/100 to 7/100 of 1 % of the worldwide market for the fully autonomous vehicles. The partially-autonomous would represent approximately .06% – 1% of the same worldwide market if we assume the $40 billion represents cars that cost 50%-60% of the fully autonomous vehicles. There will almost certainly be markets where the numbers are significantly higher, and others where they will be on-existent.
Personally I see companies like Amazon, telecommuting, on-line banking and other financial services, home streaming of movies, virtual almost everything and the new/emerging home medical testing business as having a bigger impact on driving and parking over the next 10-15 years. But that’s just an opinion, and by no means one that I would place any substantial wager on. Too much is changing too fast to predict what might happen next year, let alone 10 years from now.
The last graph makes sense. Traffic is reduced by technology that allows us to do so many things from our desk at home. He says its just his opinion, but I think it deserves attention. The autonomous car market will be an insignificant slice of the overall car market, but the ability of a homemaker to do practically everything without leaving the house it would seem would make a much larger difference to our parking market.
Its changing very quickly. Ignore it at your peril.
JVH
