The Journey as a Commodity
Let's move past the plethora of “driverless cars” articles, interesting though they are. For this piece, I want to take a different angle: the user experience.
In life, after all, we know there's value in enjoying the journey. Right?
First up, terminology. For now let’s assume autonomous vehicles (where a ‘pilot’ can take over when needed) soon mature and morph to become truly driverless vehicles.
Getting up to date
Understandably a whole host of car manufacturers want a slice of the future action - even if the future is not clear: Audi, GM, Lexus, Mercedes-Benz, Nissan, Peugeot, Renault, Toyota, Volkswagen and Volvo have all been developing vehicles.
No problems there - as a CEO, I’d be remiss if my company didn’t have an active interest, with or without Google (for that matter, here’s a digest of Google car videos [Ed. note: no longer available on YouTube as at September 2019] freshly squeezed from from Mountain View).
Moving ahead
With large scale trials underway in selected US states and this year in the UK and Sweden, there is clearly great momentum and a move toward the start line of commercialisation.
Leaving aside concerns around legislation and consistently good-looking driverless car designs, I wouldn’t be surprised if they first enter real life (in late beta?) within a relatively small geographic locality, perhaps as fleet vehicles.
Fleet vehicles would introduce a stable, more consistent set of expected travel behaviours and vehicle range, effectively de-scoping some riskier unknowns.
That exciting combination of high speeds and extremely short reaction times – highways and motorways - would be avoided (though we’re agreed that any accident avoidance decision would be reached faster computationally compared to a human, right?).
Breaking old habits
From a user experience aspect, I think driverless cars could well be massively disruptive to the automotive industry.
Firstly the journey. Over time, a journey in an autonomous vehicle will itself likely become a commodity, shaped rightly or wrongly by our existing expectations from public transport – i.e. to cede control to another in order to be transported in return for a cost effective ride and a slice of free time - bingo!
So long as I am transported comfortably (and hopefully economically), I am less likely to be concerned about whether I can call it “my” vehicle?
Talking of which, the door-to-door service from a driverless vehicle is clearly a step ahead of public transport’s stop-to-stop, or park and ride schemes. The transport hub becomes outmoded by a peer to peer model with nodes exactly where I need them at either end of my journey!
Now onto brand allegiance. The traditional auto marketing approach (getting past its sell by date) captures my desire for freedom and status (if I decide it can be afforded this way). This has grown and embedded an enduring love of vehicle brand and model.
Essentially, this cultivated desire has been the key to manufacturers to remain profitable. Without it, more of us would settle for second hand, purchasing along the low mileage - low cost continuum. And all this, largely brand agnostic.
The whole idea of a driverless car weakens this marketing as I’m choosing to be a passive passenger, so my heart and soul aren’t in the ‘product’ – not half as much as the value I place upon the experience of getting from A to B in comfort (and perhaps style also) with time to do what I like.
Just for the record though, I do place a premium on product design, as an important concept on getting to market.
Whether the sleek, svelte looks of a Lexus - or a Nissan - I do have a hunch that a lot more of us are not going to be concerned about brand or model so much.
Our friend, disruption!
Yes automotive manufacturers will pursue their subset of in-vehicle technology innovations but things are moving so fast this will soon be a mature feature set which no one company will be able to claim uniquely as its own. As for Tesla, it will be interesting to see how they evolve – but innovate I am confident they will, just as they are already doing as they diversify into battery manufacturing.
As the journey itself trends toward a commodity and as a passenger I become a passive user, then my brand / model allegiance erodes and my expectations shift towards the experience and this, together with my trust in driverless vehicles is reinforced as I travel in them over and over. So much so that going online, reading my book or chatting becomes the standard and I’m forgetting exactly what make, model or colour I’m travelling in.
I’ll let you join the rest of the dots as to how this could play out for the automotive industry.
Car rental firms and Uber, thumbs up, you can introduce your customer base to the “new way”.
Manufacturers and taxi firms, watch out as "auto-commoditisation" arrives for good and disruptive innovation serves up earthquake events to shake up traditional business models!
P.S. I reckon Chris Urmson's TED talk is fascinating - book in 15 minutes!
In life, after all, we know there's value in enjoying the journey. Right?
First up, terminology. For now let’s assume autonomous vehicles (where a ‘pilot’ can take over when needed) soon mature and morph to become truly driverless vehicles.
Getting up to date
Understandably a whole host of car manufacturers want a slice of the future action - even if the future is not clear: Audi, GM, Lexus, Mercedes-Benz, Nissan, Peugeot, Renault, Toyota, Volkswagen and Volvo have all been developing vehicles.
No problems there - as a CEO, I’d be remiss if my company didn’t have an active interest, with or without Google (for that matter, here’s a digest of Google car videos [Ed. note: no longer available on YouTube as at September 2019] freshly squeezed from from Mountain View).
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| Driving_Google_Self-Driving_Car.jpg: Steve Jurvetsonderivative work: Mariordo [CC BY 2.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0)] |
With large scale trials underway in selected US states and this year in the UK and Sweden, there is clearly great momentum and a move toward the start line of commercialisation.
Leaving aside concerns around legislation and consistently good-looking driverless car designs, I wouldn’t be surprised if they first enter real life (in late beta?) within a relatively small geographic locality, perhaps as fleet vehicles.
Fleet vehicles would introduce a stable, more consistent set of expected travel behaviours and vehicle range, effectively de-scoping some riskier unknowns.
That exciting combination of high speeds and extremely short reaction times – highways and motorways - would be avoided (though we’re agreed that any accident avoidance decision would be reached faster computationally compared to a human, right?).
Breaking old habits
From a user experience aspect, I think driverless cars could well be massively disruptive to the automotive industry.
Firstly the journey. Over time, a journey in an autonomous vehicle will itself likely become a commodity, shaped rightly or wrongly by our existing expectations from public transport – i.e. to cede control to another in order to be transported in return for a cost effective ride and a slice of free time - bingo!
So long as I am transported comfortably (and hopefully economically), I am less likely to be concerned about whether I can call it “my” vehicle?
Talking of which, the door-to-door service from a driverless vehicle is clearly a step ahead of public transport’s stop-to-stop, or park and ride schemes. The transport hub becomes outmoded by a peer to peer model with nodes exactly where I need them at either end of my journey!
Now onto brand allegiance. The traditional auto marketing approach (getting past its sell by date) captures my desire for freedom and status (if I decide it can be afforded this way). This has grown and embedded an enduring love of vehicle brand and model.
Essentially, this cultivated desire has been the key to manufacturers to remain profitable. Without it, more of us would settle for second hand, purchasing along the low mileage - low cost continuum. And all this, largely brand agnostic.
The whole idea of a driverless car weakens this marketing as I’m choosing to be a passive passenger, so my heart and soul aren’t in the ‘product’ – not half as much as the value I place upon the experience of getting from A to B in comfort (and perhaps style also) with time to do what I like.
Just for the record though, I do place a premium on product design, as an important concept on getting to market.
Whether the sleek, svelte looks of a Lexus - or a Nissan - I do have a hunch that a lot more of us are not going to be concerned about brand or model so much.
Our friend, disruption!
Yes automotive manufacturers will pursue their subset of in-vehicle technology innovations but things are moving so fast this will soon be a mature feature set which no one company will be able to claim uniquely as its own. As for Tesla, it will be interesting to see how they evolve – but innovate I am confident they will, just as they are already doing as they diversify into battery manufacturing.
As the journey itself trends toward a commodity and as a passenger I become a passive user, then my brand / model allegiance erodes and my expectations shift towards the experience and this, together with my trust in driverless vehicles is reinforced as I travel in them over and over. So much so that going online, reading my book or chatting becomes the standard and I’m forgetting exactly what make, model or colour I’m travelling in.
I’ll let you join the rest of the dots as to how this could play out for the automotive industry.
Car rental firms and Uber, thumbs up, you can introduce your customer base to the “new way”.
Manufacturers and taxi firms, watch out as "auto-commoditisation" arrives for good and disruptive innovation serves up earthquake events to shake up traditional business models!
P.S. I reckon Chris Urmson's TED talk is fascinating - book in 15 minutes!
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