The Future of Cars

I have just read an astonishing sentence.  Tech analysts are suggesting that in 20 years we won’t own cars any more.  That might seem like a short timescale, to totally phase out the owning of cars and for electric driverless cars to take over, but consider that it took less than 13 years for the combustion engine automobile to make horse-drawn vehicles obsolete and it seems a little more achievable.

• Read this article for more on that

Electric cars are pretty expensive to buy but they will last soooo much longer so unless you’re the type who likes to change your car every 3 years, you’ll possibly only buy one or two more cars in your life time. Unless what the article above is predicting comes true – that we will all use driverless vehicles to get us around and not bother owning our own as the cost would be so much lower, in which case you probably have already bought your last car.

Here’s another interesting sentence: There are more than 2000 moving parts in a combustion engine, and only around 20 in an electric engine. So there’s a lot less to go wrong.  Electric cars are coming whether we like it or not (even Aston Martin are producing one for release this year) and they will make the world a quieter place with a lot less emissions BUT until they can get me from one end of the country to other without a recharge, and that recharge is as fast as a fuel pump, well, I’m not sure I want one.

Even car manufacturers are teaming up to work out how this ‘brave new world’ is going to look.  Who ever thought that German rivals BMW and Daimler would ever join forces? This is just the latest announcement in an uncertain future for car manufacturers who are trying to get ahead of the curve in any way that keeps them afloat. It makes sense to join budgets and minds together to secure both futures in the automotive industry.

The landscape has changed so much for car owners in a very short time.  Around 100 years is all it’s taken to block up our roads, damage our immediate atmosphere (think Asian cities and their masked occupants) and mess with the minds of city planners everywhere.  We see new estates being built but not taking into consideration the amount of traffic that will pass through. Most households have two cars. It’s a rarity to find only 1.  If a household consists of two working adults and two teenagers, it won’t be long before that house has four cars on a drive designed for one.  Go back just 40 years and it didn’t look like this. Most houses had one car owner, everyone shared or just relied on public transport.

Which brings us to…the reduction in public transport. Is it a result of more car owners, or do we have more car owners because public transport has been so drastically reduced and is so expensive and unreliable?  Could a driverless ‘Uber’ type system where you walk out and hop in one of thousands of available cars for a fraction of the cost of running your own be the future we’re heading towards.  And if so, how quickly is it going to get here?

Just some thoughts to ponder. In the meantime, in the here and now, we all have cars that need maintaining and cleaning so get along to an Oak Road branch and give your car some love 🚗

Thanks to Digital Trends for the header image