New Research: Autonomous Cars Could Generate Billions In Digital Revenue

In five years, self-driving cars for the masses could be a reality. Most major automakers have made public declarations about their intention to put some sort of partially or fully autonomous vehicle on the road. While questions about how and when the vehicles will be accepted into society remain, many autonomous vehicle projects continue to roll forward, including a number of pilot tests run by Comet LLC.

The consulting firm will roll out self-car tests in between six to 10 U.S. cities this year, according to the Observer. The soonest will occur in Tampa, Florida at the Museum of Science and Industry this Spring. In all, 30 U.S cities will see driverless vehicles on their roadways by the end of 2016. Corey Clothier, an analyst for Comet spoke to the Observer about what his organization looks for in a location for self-driving testing.

Clothier said, “We’re looking at college campuses, theme parks, airports, downtown areas – places like that.” The testing vehicles will range from smaller vehicles that only seat a pair of passengers to large busses. The organization is also pilot testing transport vehicles at Fort Bragg in North Carolina. The “pod-like” vehicles will be able to transport hospitalized soldiers from their barracks to the local hospital. While Comet conducts testing, another organization just released data about a self-driving future.

McKinsey & Company recently published a study on self-driving cars. The research sought to define the impact of self-driving vehicles on everyday life. The research indicates that self-driving commuters will start to pop up between 2025 and 2030, with “mass adoption” of fully autonomous vehicles expected by 2040. The study further found that mass adoption fully autonomous vehicles could reduce car accidents in the U.S. by 90 percent. The study projected that self-driving commuters would save about 50 minutes per day. That time not spent driving could generate $5.6 billion per year in digital revenue for each minute that self-driving consumers spend using the Internet in their vehicles.

Hans- Werner Kaas, Senior Partner at McKinsey told the WSJ, “people will be able to shop for services or products from their mobile devices or from embedded systems in the vehicle.” Those embedded systems might give way to a new and highly profitable ad platform. The question is, which automaker will have a street-ready self-driving car first?

Much of the talk about self-driving technology has centered on Google and Tesla Motors. After all, Google showed the world their self-driving pod-like machines last May and Tesla already has an auto pilot mode. However, it was Nissan who announced a self-driving car by 2020 … back in 2013. Now former Executive Vice President, Andy Palmer, spoke about this declaration, “We’ve announced that we’ll introduce an autonomous drive vehicle by 2020 and we said that within two vehicle life cycles, we’d make that technology available across the entire portfolio.” However on September 4th of 2014, Palmer left Renault-Nissan to be the CEO of Aston Martin. Time will tell if Nissan follows through on Palmer’s declaration.