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Autonomous Vehicles, New Mobility & the Built Environment

Autonomous Vehicle View – 10/17/14 – Blurred Lines

Michael Robinson’s Vision of How the Cloud and Autonomous Vehicles Will Change Everything #

The cloud is blurring the lines between things that were once disparate. This was the high-level message provided by renowned automobile designer, Michael Robinson, as he gave his vision of the future at the Belron 2014 conference. With 24,000 employees, Belron is the world’s largest dedicated glass repair and replacement company. And, of course, the Belron senior managers in attendance were interested in Robinson’s message about the autonomous car, as he has pondered the significance of the transition of the automobilie to automatic-mobility (as he puts it) for decades. His talk, captured in the video below is provocative and a must-watch, as well as his answers in the Q&A video (scroll to the bottom to view).

Graph showing evolution of the vehicle in the digital age.
Image courtesy of Michael Robinson and Ed

Some of the insightful comments from his presentation:

  • The number of deaths that the auto industry causes is increasing every year. Let’s stop killing people. Noble goal of eliminating the 1.2 M deaths per year.
  • “Driving distracts me from using a cell phone” [This author included]
  • “People won’t buy cars – they will use cars.” [Argument for Transport as a Service]
  • Automobiles design will go from object to experience design – this is a challenge for the auto industry as well as others. People will be buying experiences, not objects. It’s what your customers feel after leaving your shop, that matters.
  • Instead of changing windshield screens, think about changing OLED screens. [Windshields no longer needed when the machine has eyes]
  • Convinced that we will switch from GM, to Apple, LG and Samsung….
  • Autonomy will truly make vehicles “automatic-mobility” [Shortening to Auto-Mobile –  A great term for autonomous vehicles)
  • Lawmakers and rules will be a bigger challenge to the rollout of autonomous vehicles than will technology.
  • In swarms – no need for leaders [Implication is Vehicle to Vehicle communications is working well]
  • Cars are stupid, horses aren’t [Cars will be able to return to the owner in the future]
  • “More power human beings and more intelligent machines.”
  • By 2040, steering wheels will be prohibited.
  • Google came out first in terms of a paradigm jump, the traditional manufacturers are now playing catch-up.
  • Motorcycle – work as a wearable – [That’s what LIT Motors was showing in concept at CES 2014]
  • Take advantage of science fiction – redefine the fiction into reality. Use Sci Fi ideas and put them into production.
  • Ambrogio, a virtual personal assistant….a constant metadata creator – something that stays with us for life.
  • Removing the steering wheel will take away the “cool”.  Designer will need make it cool again
  • No one is spared in the job transformation – every one of us will have a different job in 20 years….

And the video of the Question and Answers session.

Author Ken Pyle, Managing Editor

By Ken Pyle, Managing Editor

Ken Pyle is Marketing Director for the Broadband Forum. The mission of this 25+-year-old non-profit “is to unlock the potential for new markets and profitable revenue growth by leveraging new technologies and standards in the home, intelligent small business, and multi-user infrastructure of the broadband network.”

He is also co-founder of Viodi, LLC and Managing Editor of the Viodi View, a publication focused on the rural broadband ecosystem, autonomous vehicles, and electric aviation. He has edited and produced numerous multimedia projects for NTCA, US Telecom and Viodi. Pyle is the producer of Viodi’s Local Content Workshop, the Video Production Crash Course at NAB, as well as ViodiTV. He has been intimately involved in Viodi’s consulting projects and has created processes for clients to use for their PPV and VOD operations, as well authored reports on the independent telco market.

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