Tag: driverless cars

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The Driverless Revolution Series Part 3: Children Will Drive Themselves—How AVs Transform Childhood, Parenting, and Independence

By Futurist Thomas Frey

The Parent Taxi Problem

My neighbor Sarah spends at least 90 minutes every weekday driving her kids around. School drop-off. Soccer practice pickup. Piano lessons. Friend’s house. Back home. Grocery run with kids in tow because there’s no time otherwise.

She’s exhausted. Her career is limited because she can’t commit to late meetings—she’s got pickup duty. Her evenings are fractured into 15-minute segments between driving trips. She jokes that she sees more of her car’s interior than her living room.

This is normal for American parents. The average parent with kids in activities spends 1-2 hours daily as a chauffeur. It’s unpaid work. It’s stressful. It’s necessary.

Until it isn’t.

Imagine Sarah’s life when her 10-year-old can summon an autonomous vehicle to take him to soccer practice. When her 13-year-old can get herself to piano lessons. When both kids can visit friends across town without Sarah driving them.

This isn’t some distant future. This is the late 2030s. And it changes everything about childhood, parenting, and family life.

Continue reading… “The Driverless Revolution Series Part 3: Children Will Drive Themselves—How AVs Transform Childhood, Parenting, and Independence”
Driverless cars, Driverless vehicles, future predictions, future report, future scenario, future tech

The Driverless Revolution Series Part 1: The Infrastructure Apocalypse—What Happens to Parking Lots, Drive-Thrus, and Gas Stations

By Futurist Thomas Frey

The Most Valuable Land Nobody Wants

There’s a parking lot across from where my office used to be in downtown Denver. It’s an ugly scar of asphalt covering half a city block. On a good day, it generates maybe $30,000 a year in parking fees.

The land it sits on? Worth about $15 million.

That’s a 0.2% return on asset value. Possibly the worst-performing real estate investment in the entire city. And there are thousands just like it across America.

By 2040, that parking lot will be gone. So will virtually every parking lot in downtown Denver. And Seattle. And Austin. And every other American city.

They’ll be replaced by apartment buildings, offices, parks, restaurants—anything that actually generates value from expensive urban land.

This isn’t speculation. It’s inevitable math. Driverless cars don’t need to park near their destination. They drop you off and leave—returning home, picking up another passenger, or repositioning for the next ride. Parking becomes obsolete.

And parking is just the beginning. When autonomous vehicles arrive in the late 2020s and early 2030s, they’ll trigger the largest infrastructure transformation in American history. Everything designed around human drivers—parking lots, drive-thrus, gas stations, even traffic lights—becomes instantly obsolete.

The physical landscape of America is about to change more in 20 years than it has in the previous 70.

Continue reading… “The Driverless Revolution Series Part 1: The Infrastructure Apocalypse—What Happens to Parking Lots, Drive-Thrus, and Gas Stations”
future predictions, future report, future scenario, future tech

25 Shocking Predictions About the Coming Driverless Car Era (Revised for 2025)

By Futurist Thomas Frey

I’ll admit it: I got some things wrong about autonomous vehicles.

Back when I made my original predictions about the driverless car era, I was too optimistic about timelines and too conservative about what would actually change. I thought we’d have fully autonomous vehicles everywhere by 2020. I underestimated regulatory resistance. I didn’t anticipate how COVID would reshape urban transportation priorities.

But I also got some things right—and more importantly, I’ve learned what questions to ask differently. So here’s my revised take on 25 shocking predictions for the driverless car era, updated with what we’ve learned and what’s actually coming.

Continue reading… “25 Shocking Predictions About the Coming Driverless Car Era (Revised for 2025)”
Alternative Transportation, Driverless cars, Home Technology, People Making a Difference, Self-driving Cars, Transportation, Travel

The Unwritten Rules of Driverless Cars

By Futurist Thomas Frey

The driverless car is no longer science fiction—it’s here, humming quietly in test fleets, edging into city streets, and waiting for regulators to catch up. But while engineers have solved many of the mechanical and digital challenges, society hasn’t even begun to grapple with the social ones.

Here’s a simple but unsettling question: How young is too young to ride alone in a driverless car? Imagine a six-year-old, buckled into a fully autonomous pod at home, ferried ten minutes to school, and greeted by a waiting teacher at the other end. Is that safe? Is it ethical? Is it legal? And if ten minutes seems fine, what about thirty? What about an hour-long commute across town?

We don’t have answers yet—because the rules haven’t been written.

Continue reading… “The Unwritten Rules of Driverless Cars”
AI, Artificial Intelligence, Automobiles, Driverless cars, Driverless vehicles, Electric Automobile, Electric Vehicles, Engineering, Future, Futurist, Science & Technology News, Self-driving Cars, Tom Frey

The first self-driving car will debut in three years, but will you want to buy one?

Right now, you can head over to a local Volvo dealership and test drive a 2017 Volvo S90. With the push of a button, drivers can watch the car take over steering to stay within a lane, slow itself down in rush-hour traffic and accelerate — up to 80 mph — on the highway. It’s the first Volvo to include the second-generation Pilot Assist as a standard feature.

But, even equipped with radar and a 360-degree camera that can distinguish humans from deer, bicyclists and other cars, the $47,000 S90 sedan is not an autonomous vehicle. A driver must be in the seat and frequently touch the steering wheel. Otherwise, the car slows down.

Continue reading… “The first self-driving car will debut in three years, but will you want to buy one?”

Analysis, App, DaVinci Coders, DaVinci Institute, Drone, drones, Future, Futurist, Latest Trend, new technology, New Viewpoints, Science & Technology News

Futurist Thomas Frey predicts by 2030 people will rely on billions of drones and sensors to live

Thomas Frey

Thomas Frey, a futurist from the DaVinci Institute in the United States predicts that by 2030 people will rely on billions of drones and sensors to live.

Continue reading… “Futurist Thomas Frey predicts by 2030 people will rely on billions of drones and sensors to live”

Automobiles, Science & Technology News

Germany is reserving part of autobahn for driverless car testing

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Germany’s Transportation Ministry spokesman Ingo Strater told reporters yesterday that plans call for a driverless-car pilot project on a portion of the A9 autobahn, the north-south artery that connects Munich and Berlin.  Though tests have already been done on driverless cars in the U.S. and Germany, the project would be one of the first to equip a stretch of public highway specifically for that purpose. Continue reading… “Germany is reserving part of autobahn for driverless car testing”

3D Printer, Alternative Transportation, Analysis, Breakthrough Thinking, Business, Energy, Latest Trend, New Viewpoints, People Making a Difference, Robots, Science & Technology News

101 Endangered Jobs by 2030

Endangered-Jobs-1

Futurist Thomas Frey: Business owners today are actively deciding whether their next hire should be a person or a machine. After all, machines can work in the dark and don’t come with decades of HR case law requiring time off for holidays, personal illness, excessive overtime, chronic stress or anxiety.

 

Continue reading… “101 Endangered Jobs by 2030”

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