• How do self driving cars work?

• When will we have robo-taxis?

• Will car ownership become less valuable?

• What will the future of cars look like?

Topic Covered

1. Autonomous Driving

2. Regulatory Roadblocks

3. Robotaxis & Car Ownership

4. Next #1 Best Selling Car?

Autonomous Driving

We have various forms of level 1 and 2 driving available in most cars nowadays. This includes things like adaptive cruise control on highways to automatic emergency braking.

Automotive Digitization

Cars are basically computers on wheels nowadays. This is why chips shortages have been a bottleneck for car manufacturing. However, it is clear why digitization is the future of automotive. Both users and producers benefit from this shift through productivity, cost, and quality improvements.

Computer Vision

So how does autonomous driving software work? It utilizes a deep learning model called computer vision. This type of model trains the computer to recognize and map visual environments. The technical workings of these models is incredibly complex and something I will elaborate on in the future!

“Tesla’s Self Driving Computer Is Four Years Ahead of the Competition”
(Ark Invest, May 1, 2019)

“Tesla is using new AMD RDNA 2 GPU in new Model S/X, same as in Playstation 5” (Electrek, June 1, 2021)

Regulatory Framework

Fine tuning autonomous driving technology is not a straight-forward problem, and it requires consideration of legal issues. Governments must accept that autonomous driving systems are satisfactory to safety standards. This may take some convincing and can end up being a political situation. Nevertheless, the economic benefits are immense for any nation.

Current Progress

Tesla’s “Full Self Driving” software has been available for additional purchase for quite some time now. I would put this at a level 3 autonomous driving, but we are seeing encouraging improvements in their recent beta updates.

Tesla definitely has the most advanced self driving software, and this is simply due to fleet size because the greater amount of data available to work with. In machine learning, and especially deep learning models, vast amounts of high quality data is key.

As you can see Tesla has a bad habit of announcing products far before their actual release, and even then it may take awhile for those products to reach full functionality. However, they have made significant improvements in their “autopilot” software, that comes standard with every Tesla car. I would put this software in the level 2 category, but it is constantly seeing trickle down upgrades from FSD.

Robotaxis & Car Ownership

In the future we may see all transportation and delivery services become autonomous. Once this system reaches a critical adoption rate, costs would massively decline. Even to the point where many people may question car ownership.

Imagine a future where the majority of the population does not own cars. This may be achieved through a blend of robotaxis, transit, and micro-mobility. Cities could be design to be less car-centric and designate dense urban areas as pedestrian zones with reduced car volume. This would in effect also free up more space because roads and parking lots often take up an immense amount of space. Cars themselves also take up a lot of space compared to something like a bus or bikes. Increased walkability for cities has been shown to increase the wellbeing of citizens.

There are additional benefits from the deployment of robotaxis such as higher safety for passengers, cheaper transportation costs for businesses, overall reduced traffic flow and noise, and likely ever-decreasing vehicles collisions from continuous software updates.

The Next #1 Best Selling Car?

“Model 2 priced at US$22,000 may look like smaller Model Y as Tesla plans for 2 million production rate at Giga Mexico” (Apr 4, 2023)

Will likely take advantage of mega die-casting (metal molding) and other manufacturing innovations to dramatically reduce cost and increase pace of production.

Report: Tesla & IDRA Planning Massive Giga Press For Compact Car (Oct 15, 2021)

It is clear the car of the future is a crossover and this makes sense given it’s unibody construction.

Advantages include:

• Stiffer body & structure → improved handling & safety

• Less material → lighter weight & less cost

Disadvantages include:

• Non-modular design → locked into product

• Less off-road capability

“Tesla plunges 250 feet off a California cliff, all 4 occupants survive”
(Jan 4, 2023)

Further Readings

10 Important Auto Industry Trends (2023-2025)

1. Micromobility grew by 5% of total US transportation between 2019 - 2022

   1. Personal bicycle, ride hailing, taxis, car sharing, motorcycles, bike sharing & the dreaded e-scooter

• What is the average car size?

• What is a crossover?

• Why are cars getting so big?

• How much safer are cars nowadays?

Topics Covered

1. Best Selling Cars

2. Crossovers

3. SUVs

4. Car Safety Trends

Best Selling Cars Global All Time

#1 best selling car global all time vs #2 best selling car global all time

#1 best selling car global all time (hatchback version)

Starting in 2018, the Toyota Corolla Hatchback was added as an offering. This version of the sedan appears to be shorter in length and slightly larger in width and height, with a more spacious trunk door.

#1 best selling car global all time (crossover version)

Starting in 2020, the Toyota Corolla Cross was added as an offering. This version of the Sedan significantly increases the overall car size and essentially turns it into a compact SUV.

These varied offerings of the Toyota Corolla gives us a good indication of automotive trends such as the popularization of hatchbacks and crossovers. The general trend appears to be that consumers want bigger cars and more trunk space as the 21st century develops.

Crossovers

“Crossovers Conquer America As Top SUV Sales Triple In A Decade”
(Oct 26, 2020)

SUVs and crossovers get lumped into the same category at times because they represent a growing demand for utility vehicles and have similar physical characteristics. Put simply, a crossover tend to be lighter and take advantage of existing car platforms, while SUVs tend to be heavier and use a truck type chassis.

Sport Utility Vehicles

Long before crossovers were popular, or able to be manufactured at scale, SUVs were the original utility vehicle. SUVs are considered utility vehicles because they offer more cabin space. This cabin space could be used for family, extra groceries/cargo, or just pure comfort/luxury. One important thing must be acknowledged, which is that all utility vehicles have a high riding height. This results in undesirable geometry for pedestrians as there are bigger blind spots, particularly in the front of the vehicle.

Luxury SUVs

Luxury car sales are growing aggressively and the same larger overall trend for beefier cars appears to apply. One must also consider how these large luxurious vehicles can often become a status symbol. We know that the suburbanite does not need a Range Rover or equivalent to reach the local grocery store.

#1 best selling car global all time (crossover version) vs popular luxury SUVs

As you can see luxury SUVs that are mid-range premium and above are larger than the “average” SUV. Range Rovers are alarmingly popular and you can see how gargantuan the car is next to a typical SUV.

Electric Crossovers

The trend of large vehicles is transferring into new EV sales. Electric vehicle adoption has reached a critical level, 5% market share, and we have a leading contender for the most popular EV.

The Model Y Crossover was the #1 selling car in Europe Q1 2023 and is the #1 selling electric car global all time. At its current sales growth rates it appears that this will remain the case.

Tesla leads the charge in electric car sales with the #1 & #3 best selling electric car global all time.

#1 best selling electric car vs #1 best selling SUV

The RAV4 is marketed as a compact SUV, but it is technically a crossover.

#1 best selling electric car vs #3 best selling electric car

The Model 3 Sedan is actually a crossover hatchback given its unibody construction and hatchback trunk. Marketing terms will label cars based on branding versus technicality.

#3 best selling electric car vs #1 best selling car global all time

If you liked these comparisons try the site out for yourself! Carsized.com

The Tesla Model 3 serves as a debatable long term replacement for a Toyota Corolla. Despite this, it appears the Model 3 is outsold by the Model Y, a more expensive car. This could be due to the high, but declining, cost of EVs driving only higher income customers to purchase them, hence the decision to spend the additional several grand for a compact SUV instead of a sedan is easily considered.

Car Safety Trends

One of the biggest reasons that people are attracted to bigger cars is likely safety. A basic physical analysis will tell you that a bigger object will experience less force upon impact. When you look at the average size car on the road today you may be persuaded to buy a crossover to minimize your chances of a fatal crash. This leads to a positive feedback cycle where drivers keep purchasing bigger and bigger cars leading others to do the same. However, we cannot blame all of this on consumers as there are other factors such as the increased presence of large work vehicles.

“Commercial vehicles reach record share of vehicles on road” (SMMT, May 31, 2022)

Overall, car safety has risen dramatically due to improvements in car engineering and standardized systems like seats belts, air bags, and ABS.

Safety Improvements

Cars have vastly improved since their inception. Structural systems such as air bags, seat belts, crumple zones, and side impact beams were not always standardized. In this video you see that the car from 1959 gets absolutely destroyed, while the 2009 car is relatively undamaged near the cabin.

There has also been improvements on the software side, which I will discuss in the following post on autonomous driving technologies!

Rollover Risk

While SUVs may be more durable or tough consumers need to be aware of other risks that come with a tall vehicle.

One benefit of electric vehicles is that their battery weight is concentrated at the bottom of the vehicle contributing to a lower center of gravity. This greatly reduces rollover risk, and is a part of the reason why Tesla cars have received perfect safety ratings.

“Tesla explains how it achieves top safety rating on Model Y and ‘lowest rollover risk of any SUV’” (Electrek, Jan 14, 2021)

Further Readings

Ego Development Theory

A psychodevelopmental perspective by Susanne Cook-Greuter

From an evolutionary standpoint, we have developed all of these cognitive skills to help us better survive in this world. The processes occuring inside of a human body are amazing, but comes with many flaws or drawbacks as nature usually does. We are not engineered for perfection and sometimes getting the job done good enough is what matters.

The Age of Abundance

Postmodernism

“Postmodernism refers to the state of culture where media is produced in such staggering quantitites that it has crossed the boundaries into reality itself and hyperreality prevails.”

Jean-Francois Lyotard

Credited with the formulation of postmodernism in his work The Postmodern Condition.

Hyperreality by Jean Baudrillard

Closing Notes

The question I want you to ask yourself is.. what is your reality? What is your perception of your surroundings and the world? What biases have come to form in your brain to adapt and survive your circumstances? What experiences have made you this way? At the end of the day no one’s reality will perfectly align with another persons. Imperfection is the beauty in nature and this diversity is what brings us evolution, innovation, and the expansion of our existence. Question what assumptions you make and the conventions that you follow. Nobody is right 100% of the time. There are things beyond our reach of understanding and this humility goes a long way.

Further Readings

Definition: the general intellectual, moral, and cultural climate of an era

Near Future

Back To The Future (bio-metric payment, holograms, tablets, videoconferencing, hydroponics, AR/VR, wall mounted widescreen TVs)

Gattaca (extreme genetic profiling)

Jurassic Park (animal cloning)

Children of Men (mass infertility)

Minority Report (gesture based interface, predictive intelligence)

Her (AI operating software)

Ex Machina (passing the Turing test)

2001: A Space Odyssey (artificial general intelligence)

Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (memory erasure)

Total Recall (memory implantation)

Upgrade (neuromotor enhancement)

The Martian (first Mars mission)

Black Mirror (various societal implications of tech)

Mid-Range Future

The Terminator (killer AI)

The Matrix (oppressive AI)

Interstellar (climate change, food insecurity & space colonization)

Elysium (ring worlds, robot security, extreme rich/poor divide, advanced medical diagnostics, exosuits, matter deflectors)

Ad Astra (widespread space exploration)

The Expanse (widespread space colonization)

Blade Runner (synthetic humanoids, sprawling mega-cities)

Altered Carbon (similar to Blade Runner)

Avatar (off world resource extraction, space imperialism)

Alien (hostile alien lifeforms, mass space industrialization)

Westworld (indistinguishable AI theme parks, global predictive AI)

Ghost in the Shell (artificial bodies, copies of consciousness)

Cyberpunk (post nuclear war, hyper-capitalism, cyber-implants)

Deus Ex (similar to Cyberpunk, mind-hacking, cyborg discrimination)

Far Future & Fantasy

Dune (tribalistic factions, psychedelic use, abandonment of AI)

Star Wars (George Lucas: self explanatory)

Foundation (Isaac Asimov: godfather of sci-fi novels)

Raised By Wolves (atheist vs religious high tech war)

District 9 (discrimination of trapped alien visitors)

Annihilation (unexplainable alien life-form)

Arrival (alien visitors offering higher dimensional tech)

Rise of the Planet of the Apes
(cognitive accelerant, inter-species war)

Wall E (Earth becomes a landfill, space cruises)

Akira (unexplainable far biotech)