IEEE Future Directions
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I pointed out several times that the shift to self driving cars will change the perception we have of cars and their personal value. A self driving cars, for many and for most Italians for sure, will be perceived more as a cab, or a bus than as a personal asset. Gone will be the pleasure (for some) of flooring the pedal to get breathtaking acceleration, gone will be the business of radar warning…
Hence I was not surprised to read that General Motors is busy reinventing the car inside-out. According to Mike Abelson, GM vice president for global strategy, the future cars will be unrecognisable from today’s cars. No more steering wheels nor pedals. The car will remain a pod where people will spend million of hours, but no longer absorbing their attention to on driving. Those million hours will be freed and many constituencies will try to capture them.
The challenge is on building an engaging in-car experience and that is not necessarily a strong point of car manufacturers that so far have been focussing of the driver (who is the one making the buying choice) and not on the riders. Other companies that have experience in engaging through entertainment or shopping may find a great opportunity in the colonisation of the car interior. Hyundai, see the clip, goes as far as imagining a car like an extension of the living room, actually docking into it.
