Economic Ramifications of the “Transportation Cloud”

Autonomous cars are a fascinating subject, especially as we hurtle closer and closer to their ubiquity with every passing month.

In a sweeping (and heavily footnoted) blog post, entrepreneur and futurist Zack Kanter gets into the economic disruption aspect…

A Columbia University study suggested that with a fleet of just 9,000 autonomous cars, Uber could replace every taxi cab in New York City – passengers would wait an average of 36 seconds for a ride that costs about $0.50 per mile. Such convenience and low cost will make car ownership inconceivable, and autonomous, on-demand taxis – the ‘transportation cloud’ – will quickly become dominant form of transportation – displacing far more than just car ownership, it will take the majority of users away from public transportation as well. With their $41 billion valuation, replacing all 171,000 taxis  in the United States is well within the realm of feasibility – at a cost of $25,000 per car, the rollout would cost a mere $4.3 billion.

Read the whole thing, there’s a lot to think about here.

Source:

How Uber’s Autonomous Cars Will Destroy 10 Million Jobs and Reshape the Economy by 2025 (Zack Kanter)

hat tip Patrick O