Instead of the "normal" consumer product roll out of expensive product-to-less-expensive with consumer purchasing and word of mouth leading to widespread use, it is looking more and more like the roll out of driverless vehicles will be a splashy display of product and product delivery chutzpah with lots and lots of the product available on day one.
The widespread introduction will not only familiarize the public with a new type of vehicle - one that is completely driverless - BUT also with a vehicle that is largely only available to the public via ride hailing services such as Uber and Lyft/GM. Ford is another car company that is seeing the future this way.
Of course, if you happen to be wealthy and either an early adopter and/or a conspicuous consumer, you might want to purchase a personal driverless vehicle, but for the rest of us, the freedom from car maintenance, gassing up, car payments, car depreciation, and car shopping - not to mention converting garages into studies, extra bedrooms, or family rooms - will be a welcome lifting of burdens.
So instead of showrooms with a few of the new fancy cars, and only a relatively few consumers affluent enough to purchase them, we will see lots of the these driverless taxi/ride hailing pods available, maybe at first only in a few cities, on day one of the launch.
All we will have to do is pay.
GM agrees with me
I am sure that Uber agrees with me, but now the Mr. America of conventional car companies, is seeing the light. GM is reported to be considering/excitedly predicting that the ride hailing model will be the way to go.
I know there are those who disagree, those who say Americans will not relinquish their steering wheels.
They are wrong.
Right now, what Americans, especially young ones, do not want to relinquish is time with their personal screens - smartphones, especially. Add to them the seniors who would rather not or should not be driving. Suddenly there's a big market that, in my opinion, will only grow.
No comments:
Post a Comment