Air taxis, self-driving cars: What your commute could look like in 2030

Thursday, 23 January 2020

Picture yourself shooting across the country in a levitating pod or hovering above traffic in a drone.

Imagine a time when daily commutes times are cut in half, or when you don't have to own or operate a car at all to get to your destination.

Those types of transportation options are projected to be available by the year 2030 thanks to improvements in electric battery power, internet connectivity and next-level automation.

The future is already here: up to 20 Toyota e-Palette autonomous vehicles will be providing transport for athletes at the Tokyo Olympic and Paralympic games this year.

'Transportation planning has always been around how to get a vehicle from place to place using roads and traffic lights. But that's changing,' said Thom Rickert, a risk and insurance specialist at Trident Public Risk Solutions.

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The mobility industry's next objective is to focus on moving a person through multiple modes of connected travel. That's where air taxis, e-scooters, connected trains and semiautonomous cars come into play, powered by widespread 5G connectivity, Rickert said.

Air taxis

As costs fall and batteries improve the uptake of EVs will grow. But it is still relatively tiny.

Shorter distance or 'last-mile' travel will be revolutionised through the widespread adoption of 5G connectivity which will allow machines to communicate with each other directly, enabling more cars and other means of transportation to travel at faster speeds without humans operating them.

Current wireless networks, for example, haven't been strong enough to send reliable signals to aircraft throughout a flight, according to Laurie Garrow, associate director for the Centre for Urban and Regional Air Mobility at Georgia Tech.

Toward the end of the decade, '5G connectivity will allow us to design air taxis and give us the ability to think about truly moving toward autonomous control of aircraft,' Garrow said.

She projects electric take-off and landing aircraft displacing some of the helicopters in operation today. 'And we will see new markets open up with these aircraft,' Garrow said.

Tesla started the whole over-the-air update thing, now lots of other car makers are following.

Though hurdles like safety regulations, noise concerns and infrastructure needs could prolong projected launch dates, Uber and Hyundai plan on lifting air taxis into the skies in the next few years.

Other electric vertical takeoff and landing vehicle companies have similar plans.

Electric travel

As engineering costs fall and battery power continues to improve, the electric vehicles market will continue to grow, though EVs aren't expected to overtake gas-powered cars anytime soon, according to Joe Wiesenfelder, the executive editor at Cars.com.

'Overall (EV) use in the country will continue to lag due to consistently low gas prices, lack of public infrastructure, the recent EPA/California ruling and pending trade wars,' Wiesenfelder said in a statement.

In 2019, EVs represented about 1 per cent of the cars on the road in the U.S. Auto industry analyst Eric Lyman told USA TODAY he projects EVs could make up 5 per cent of car sales by 2025.

Car ownership

As EVs gain traction, an increase in transportation alternatives like air taxis could lead to a gradual decline in car ownership within the next five years, Rickert said.

'As all these different solutions are tested, perfected, adjusted and evolved, there will be less of a dependence on an automobile' and less traffic on the ground, Rickert, an insurance specialist, said. 'Especially in urban areas.'

Over-the-air updates

Everyday vehicles that are capable of receiving over-the-air updates from automakers will become ubiquitous as drivers want their cars to be just as updatable as smartphones.

'You don't want to hear that your vehicle that lasts an average 11 years is out of date,' Wiesenfelder said.

Much like smartphones, older connected cars can get some of the same features as new cars thanks to regular airwave updates. Tesla kickstarted the trend and OTA updates have begun to spread throughout the auto industry as companies like Ford, BMW and GM roll out updatable vehicle platforms.

Autonomous driving

Experts say self-driving features will reach an inflection point over the next several years, though vehicles aren't expected to be able to do all the driving.

'More and more vehicles will have standard equipment with basic automation like lane-keeping assist, automated braking and left-hand turn assistance,' Rickert said. 'Those things that can detect blind spots and tell one vehicle whether another is about to turn, will reduce more accidents.'

However, Level 5 autonomy, where a vehicle can go anyplace at anytime without intervention by a human, isn't expected to be widely available until after 2030.

'I do see those types of vehicles being used in geo-gated areas where they can be more controlled,' Rickert said. 'Whereas wider deployment on interstate highways, it's going to take a while to get there.'

- USA Today