According to a new study by McKinsey and Company, self-driving cars could drive up Internet revenue by billions of dollars per year. The study also projects that widespread adoption of self-driving cars could lead to a 90 percent reduction in U.S. vehicle crashes, with a potential savings of nearly $200 billion a year from fewer injuries and deaths.
Every day about 1.2 billion people spend an average of 50 minutes driving a car. This means that humans spend about one billion hours each day driving, the equivalent of 114,000 years in a single day.
Imagine what humans could do with all that extra time if the car could drive itself freeing up your attention and hands during the commute. The effects could be huge.
In the study, McKinsey and Company estimates that billions more hours would be spent on the Internet. This extra time would then translate into $5.6 billion more in digital revenue for every minute spent by drivers in their car.
In the future, "people will be able to shop for services or products from their mobile devices or from embedded systems in the vehicle," said Hans-Werner Kaas, senior partner and head of McKinsey's automotive practice.
Many automakers don't believe that the shift to self-driving cars will accelerate until 2025, but they already face competition from both within their industry and outside of it as well.
Some automakers such as Mercedes-Benz and Volkswagen are already beginning to implement driver assistance systems on their vehicles. In addition, outside challengers from the likes of Google and Apple are also poised to change the auto industry as we know it today.
Google's new self-driving car won't even allow humans to drive it if they wanted to. The prototype revealed that it lacks a steering wheel, gas tank, brake pedals or mirrors. Apple is also working on its own version of a self-driving car and rumors of a possibly merger between Tesla and Apple have raised even more suspicion that Apple may be seriously considering an entry into the auto market.
The implementation of self-driving cars could cause a shift among insurers as they shift from covering human error to the risk of technical failure and it could even shift from franchised dealer service to independent shops where autonomous cars can drive themselves in for repairs and maintenance. Fewer trips for repair could also be a part of our car futures as many problems could be diagnosed and repaired wirelessly.
