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Toyota Exec: Automated Ride-Hailing Could End Mass-Market Cars
The rise of self-driving, on-demand shuttles eventually will eliminate demand for mass-market cars, Toyota Motor Corp. design chief Simon Humphries tells Reuters.
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The rise of self-driving, on-demand shuttles eventually will eliminate demand for mass-market cars, Toyota Motor Corp. design chief Simon Humphries tells Reuters.
He predicts the car market will evolve toward generic shuttle pods for routine trips at one end and ultra-luxury cars for pampered personal transportation at the other.
“There will be an emotional solution and a practical solution,” he says, theorizing that the center of the traditional car market eventually could disappear.
A world full of completely autonomous electric vehicles would erase the need for such design constraints as steering wheels, foot pedals, forward-facing seats, fuel tanks, high-performance suspensions and structures to absorb the energy of a crash.
The result, Humphries says, will be far greater flexibility to design “fit-for-purpose” vehicles. From a design standpoint, he tells Reuters, “When you don’t have to hold a steering wheel, the world is your oyster.”
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