- What dream car do you
want to own in the future?
Trick question.
You won't get to.
(strong pulsating music)
I'm in Austin for South By Southwest 2016
and one of the biggest discussions here
at Interactive, is the concept
of autonomous cars and
the sharing economy.
Imagine a future where
all the cars are driven
by robots, and you don't own your car.
You actually just call up a service
whenever you need to get
from point A to point B
and a driver-less car scoots
up, and you get in, and you go.
Why is this such a compelling idea?
Let me throw a couple of number at you.
Frederick Soo, of Nauto, actually said
that all the energy that a
car uses to move a person
amounts to just two percent
of the energy it expends.
That's incredibly inefficient.
And part of that inefficiency also is
in the use of the vehicle.
The average American car
spends 96% of its time parked
in parking space or a garage.
But with a fleet of constantly
moving autonomous cars,
you have proximity, you have prevalence,
and you have price.
Now what that means is
that with enough cars,
there's always going to
be one close enough to you
so that it's just a matter of
minutes before it drives up
to your curb.
With the prevalence, that
means there's enough all
over the city to get you to
wherever you may need to get,
and price is in a matter of scale.
As you build in more autonomous cars,
the price per mile comes down.
Right now, if you want to
get to point A to point B,
you're talking about a price
of around a dollar a mile.
But, with scaling that up,
we could probably bring
that price down to 50 cents per mile
or even 25 cents per mile.
And suddenly, you're talking
about an attainable model
for transportation.
Now the panels that I went to
today were really interesting,
had a lot of discussion,
and even disagreement,
about what role will car
ownership play in this future.
Will everyone still own a car?
Will they get rid of their cars?
It seems to be up in the air.
In fact, one person said
car ownership might become
like horse ownership.
Some people may have them for
specific purposes, perhaps,
outside of city areas
or to go off-roading,
but you wouldn't be driving
your vehicle that frequently.
So, why take up space owning one?
Personally, I think this sounds
like a really interesting,
but incredibly disruptive technology.
We're not just talking
about personal travel,
we're talking about freight and shipping.
We're talking about airlines
having to rethink their role
in tomorrow's society.
The whole thing blows my mind.
Guys, I spoken enough
about this right now.
You got to go to now.howstuffworks.com
everyday to learn more
about the coolest stories
going on, right now.
I'll see you there.
