[ot-caption title=”Experts believe these self-driving cars represent the future of the automobile industry. (via, Dllu, Wikimedia Commons)”]

Since the dawn of the startup giant Uber, the long established transportation industry has been altered in a very meaningful way. From the point of inception of the taxi cab killer to the development of its competitor Lyft, there has been a great amount of speculation regarding the potential of these new transportation conglomerates. While local authorities tried to halt them initially, the continual progress of technology evidenced that this effort to shut them down would not last. Now, the convenience, cleanliness, and enhanced experience has begun rumors as to what these services could manifest in the not too distant future.[spacer height=”20px”]

The most striking of these theories about the future is one of autonomous cars. Google’s, Tesla’s, Mercedes-Benz’s and other’s efforts to create a truly autonomous car have proven that this invention is very much on the horizon and will be paradigm shifting. Considering the simple reality of the transportation industry being one of the largest employers in the United States, this change will have widespread implications on the lives of people all over the world. However, some conceive of a world in which truly autonomous cars dominate the automobile industry, but not in the capacity that cars do today, which is ownership by individuals. Instead, companies like Lyft and Uber are foretold to have a fleet of autonomous cars that continuously drive the streets, taking passengers to and from any location. The pairing of the inexpensive nature of electricity to power the cars (in the case of a fleet of Teslas) with the lack of a need to pay a wage to any driver would reduce the costs of these services. This reduction is believed to eventually reach a point where the cost of owning and “driving” a car oneself will be greater than using Uber regularly.[spacer height=”20px”]

In addition, the inconvenience of searching for parking or blockages in the way of parking garages would be alleviated in this future world. Cars could share information wirelessly that would allow for the total avoidance of slow downs, an increase in safety, and higher speed limits for autonomous vehicles. Another benefit of this perfect information transfer will be seen at stoplights where cars will be able to accelerate at the same rate and therefore not have to wait for each preceding car to begin moving forward for the subsequent cars to do so (as seen today), as all cars will know the accelerations of those around them.[spacer height=”20px”]

Ultimately, only time will dictate whether these speculations concerning the future will come true, but maybe one day humans will no longer own cars and will be using uber as their sole form of transportation.[spacer height=”20px”]

Sources: Motherboard, TechCrunch Photo source: Wikimedia Commons