Within five years, autonomous vehicles will handle the majority of trips offered by ride-hailing service Lyft, says one of the company?s co-founders. Within the next 10 years, well, that?s when things may get even more interesting.
Lyft co-founder and president John Zimmer says car ownership as we know it will cease to exist within the next decade in an essay posted on Medium, a website on which everyone from executives to ordinary people can publish essays and thinkpieces. In his piece, entitled “The Third Transportation Revolution,” Zimmer writes that the ?burden of car ownership??which costs American drivers about $9000 per year, according to AAA?will make it more attractive for residents major cities to abandon private ownership by 2025. ?Every year, more and more people are concluding that it is simpler and more affordable to live without a car,? he wrote. ?And when networked autonomous vehicles come onto the scene, below the cost of car ownership, most city dwellers will stop using a personal car.?
Those are two bold projections. It?s clearly in Zimmer?s self-interest to make them, but there?s more to his wide-ranging treatise than the eagerness of another Silicon Valley executive to take a swipe at the incumbent industry.
For one, Lyft?s fortunes are tied to one of those incumbents. General Motors invested $500 million in the company earlier this year, and Lyft intends to use the all-electric Chevrolet Bolt as one of its early autonomous offerings. Zimme...