5. Smart Cars
So in this brave new world of ours we are quietly and safely being driven to our destination by an electric self-driving car on a road that creates electricity with every sun ray that hits it, every tyre that rolls over it, and every step we take on it. And now I’m talking about something as “meh” as smart cars?
Well.. yeah. You might think that cars being self-driven already assumes they are smart. And you’d be right, but by “smart cars” I don’t mean smart at just navigating and driving you around, but smart in various other ways. It is possible for there to be a car that can drive you around, but too dumb to talk to your smartphone for example.
And why shouldn’t it be able to talk to your smartphone? This is actually the easiest of all of these five technologies, since it’s already pretty much with us, at least in newer car models. Apple has recently partnered with certain manufacturers to integrate iOS into car systems as part of their CarPlay platform, and Google has similar initiatives. The car can be connected to the internet, run various apps, and so on.
In other words, while your car is driving you to the destination you can talk to it. I mean, with iOS and Android integration it will have Siri or Google Now, right? You can ask it everything the internet knows about that company you are going to a job interview for, or everything the internet knows about the date you’re about to meet, or you can just sit back and tell it to play the latest episode of Suits, until you arrive at whatever your destination is.
The Destination
And we have arrived. What do we see here?
Imagine what happens when these technologies combine, and its effects start reverberating through our lives and our industries. The impact certainly goes beyond transportation alone. Transportation is, as it appears, a sort of life blood of our societies. Our roads intertwine our cities like the veins in our bodies, carrying people and resources like blood cells carry oxygen.
The transformations that begin here could help transform everything else. Let’s hope that there is the will and the persistence to follow through to the finish line, and make this future a reality.
Drew
“In Tesla’s case they are known as superchargers and are completely solar powered” = FALSE
None of the superchargers are solar powered … this is a complete myth. There are 2 in the US that have a few solar panels but these are not enough to power the cars. The superchargers are powered by the grid which gets is electricity from coal and natural gas 67% of the time.