San Diego, CA. The automobile has a bright future, but significant reinvention will be a key to that future, according to Dr. Larry Burns, Professor of Engineering at the University of Michigan and director of the Program for Sustainable Mobility at Columbia University. Presenting a keynote address to attendees of IPC APEX EXPO, Dr. Burns, former vice president of research and development and strategic planning at General Motors, charted the history of the automobile and extrapolated from that history into the future.
Since 1886 when Karl Benz won the first patent for gasoline autos, there has been much achievement, Burns said, extending through automatic transmission, direct-injection engines, cruise control, and electronic stability control, among many other features. Nevertheless, up until Google logged more than 300,000 self driving miles, the genetic makeup—mechanical drive and a combustion engine powered by oil-based fuel—has remained relatively constant, he said. The DNA of the car has not evolved much.
This particular strain of DNA has been successful from an evolutionary standpoint. Burns noted that there are 1 billion automobiles worldwide, and parked end to end they would circle the globe 100 times. But this evolutionary success has not come without costs: many millions of traffic-related fatalities, traffic delays, parking land-use issues, and CO2 emissions. Today's automotive culture, this alum of GM R&D labs said, is unlikely to be sustainable without transformational change.
He encouraged APEX attendees to consider developing innovations that could capture them $0.01 per mile—such innovations could yield their inventors $30 billion per year, based on a time value of $0.85/mile (based on a $50,000 per year salary) that consumers put on their commuting time. Harvesting that penny per mile could put you in competition with Apple Computer and Exxon Mobile.
Burns said that IPC APEX EXPO attendees are particularly situated to fundamentally change the DNA of the automotive industry and take advantage of significant growth opportunities as automobiles transition from mechanical/ICE drive to electrical drive.
A key feature in that transition, he said, is the advent of the driverless vehicle. The age of driverless vehicles will herald light, efficient vehicles that don't crash—so far at least, robots don’t experience road rage.
He recounted DARPA Challenge and Google successes with driverless vehicles and suggested such technology could become commercially available by the end of the decade. He suggested a possible path toward autonomous vehicles, including optional self-driving, cruise control on steroids, and driverless mobility systems on college campuses.
Among the many problems of today's automotive transportation system, he cited underuse. Even during peak times, only 12% of vehicles are on the road. He said that no successful business would ever invest in capital equipment that's idle 88% of the time. Moreover, most individually owned cars are overdesigned—they rarely need to go 125 mph.
The preferred alternative, he said, is the shared special-purpose autonomous vehicle that matches the needs of the customer—with respect to speed requirements, passenger occupation, cargo capacity, and so forth.
A fleet of purpose-tailored autonomous vehicles, he predicted, could achieve cost improvements of 15X. Mass could be reduced fivefold, and electric motors are 3X more efficient than ICE vehicles. Further, electric vehicles have one-tenth as many moving parts.
With shared fleets, a driverless vehicle, he said, can arrive at your door when you need it. He cited specific case studies—one involving Ann Arbor. This medium sized city, he said, has 285,000 people, covers 130 sq miles, and includes 200,000 personally owned vehicles that make 3.7 trips per day. A simulation of this system, he said, indicates that Ann Arbor needs only 18,000 driverless vehicles per day and would require a subscription of only $3 per day per subscriber. Response times would be less than two minutes, and there would be few “empty miles.”
He cited similar simulations that suggest the benefits of a driverless system to take over Manhattan taxi service, for example. In every case he has studied, he said, the autonomous vehicle model makes good business sense.
He emphasized that roadway transportation is truly ripe for transformational change—promising a better mobility experience at radically lower consumer and societal cost.
Who is poised to take advantage? He noted that in disrupted industries, incumbent players rarely do well. Kodak, for example, has struggled with the transition to digital photography.
Alluding to The Innovator's Dilemma, he concluded by noting the golden rule of strategy: “Do unto yourself before others do unto you!”
In response to audience questions, he said that snow remains an impediment to driverless vehicles, but added that half the vehicles in the world never see freezing temperatures. He acknowledged that there will be a transition period when self-driving vehicles share roads with self-driving teenagers, but added that the safety features of self-driving cars will more than compensate. As for people who just like to drive, he said that even driving aficionados would often prefer to leave the driving to their vehicles. More than a hundred years on, there are still a lot of horse aficionados out there, he said, but most have cars.